Encore For Adrasteia
by clueless in seattle
Summary: As major changes are occuring in their lives Bobby and Alex have to deal with a series of robberies and he has to confront his past as well as facing his future.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:**__All of the characters are the property of Dick Wolf. I thank him, the writers, the directors and all the great actors who brought them "to life" for our benefit. Any "liberties" I have taken with them is motivated only by my fond admiration. _

_**AN:**__ This story is not set entirely within the accepted "canon" or strictly within the "storyline" for the characters as it is only officially portrayed by the TV series. _

_**Oh the ultimate hubris…a trilogy…follows from **_"A Wide Open Country"_** and **__"A Friend Of Mine" __**but is a darker story and my own spin on the Nicole and Frank part of Bobby's life.**_

_**ENCORE FOR ADRASTEIA**_

**Friday 28****th**** December**

_**1643 Waterloo St, Cedar Rapids, Iowa**_

The body of the woman was fairly slender, the dark hair cut short and it swung from side to side for only a short time. A stain began to appear at the crotch of her light blue pants. The bladder often emptied spontaneously with a hanging. It was why they sent the condemned to the gallows wearing a diaper.

Suspended from the rail of the second floor landing, the rope round her neck creaked softly against the white painted spindles and then stopped. There was a slight trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth where she bit her tongue or lip at the last minute. The figure in the lower hall stood watching for a moment, smiled and then went out of the rear door.

In the following days the local community was to express its shock and surprise. Especially that part of it associated with _Taft Middle School._ Trish Sewell had been an English teacher there for only four semesters but she was a popular member of the faculty. Many of her students cried at the news she was dead. It made a couple of lines on the _KWWL 7_ news and a short paragraph in _The Chronicle._

**Sunday 30****th**** December**

**_St. Anthony's Church, Brooklyn_**

John Dwyer felt guilty. Some said it went with the territory when you were Catholic and doubly so for a priest it seemed at times. It had been one of those dilemmas so beloved of the Jesuits, who probably had worked out the number of angels that could dance on the head of pin. Centuries ago but kept the information to themselves ever since.

The man who had come to him was desperate. As usual for money and for some information. The first was easy to fix. Father John gave him sixty bucks from his own wallet. For the sake of charity and their shared history. They had grown up together, taken _First Communion_ together and attended the same High School, though it was the man's younger brother John Dwyer was to become fast friends with.

The priest wasn't sure how the money was going to be used. On drink or gambling or perhaps to pay off some of a debt. Any of those things were possible and judging by his highly anxious state, the last seemed probable. A debt owed to the sort of people who would not be too particular how they collected it. The sort for whom taking a pound of flesh, quite literally, was an every day occurrence.

Denying him the information he wanted was harder. The Church saw itself as a family and Father John came from a close and loving one. The instinct of the priest in him was not to withhold. To hope and pray, that with it might come some kind of re-union, an understanding and a closeness that could develop again between the man and his brother.

A bond that John Dwyer watched begin to fracture when they were in their teens. Not the sort of childhood squabbles and sibling rivalry that was normal, but something more than that. Two very different individuals they say is often the case with just two kids. Starting to go in opposite directions in their lives and brotherly love not nurtured by the wider family problems.

But Father John had sworn an oath. Not of the sort it would be a sin to break but still one he felt he could not. To keep an address and telephone number in Massachusetts from the dishevelled man before him if he should show up looking for his _"kid brother"._ With his fingers wrapped tightly round the cash, his pleading and cajoling had turned to cursing before he left the church.

He would pray for him. That his soul would see the light someday and that the money would, for once, be put to the good use was sorely needed. Just looking at the man he seemed close to vagrancy. Perhaps he would seek the help Father John had also provided him with contacts for. But he doubted it. And understood more than he perhaps had before. Why his friend felt he had to make a final break after close to thirty years of trying to keep his brother on the straight and narrow path.

**Thursday 3****rd**** January**

_**Tremont St, Cambridge, Massachusetts.**_

He suddenly realised why the book was getting harder to read. The afternoon had gone suddenly dark and glancing out the window, more fine snow was falling. Typical. Like he'd not shovelled enough that day already? And cleared more than their _"share"_ of the sidewalk.

Goren reached for the lamp behind him to start the next chapter and then thought twice. Maybe it was a bit _"geeky"_ to have read the whole of a set text before the class even began? Not only that, there were still several things on his daily _"to do"_ list of household chores.

He left the book on the side table, collected the vacuum and a box of cleaning supplies and went upstairs. Twenty minutes later the master bedroom was tidier, lint and dust free and he was smoothing fresh sheets onto the bed. Sheets perhaps they would rumple together later? If his back held up after all that snow shovelling. That didn't rule out some options though…if he could convince Caro that the twinges were genuine.

Not that _"excuse"_ needed to be found. Just wished she wasn't liable to tease him he should expect that kind of thing _"at his age"._ Could still give her a run for her money and it wasn't like she ever ran away that fast.

**Monday 7****th**** January**

_**Major Case Squad Room, IPP, New York**_

The blond detective read every word of the report from _Cedar Rapids, Iowa,_ a second time. To be sure she took it all in and was not imagining what it said. Detective Kate Fox had responded to the finding of a body on Waterloo Street. Done more than a usually thorough job for what looked to be a suicide.

Nothing the medical report or she turned up said otherwise, but it was when she came to contact relatives of _"Trish Sewell"_ it all became very strange. At first she thought she might be dealing with someone the Feds or the US Marshals had put into witness protection. When nothing about the schoolteacher was checking out.

But DNA didn't lie and eventually they came up with a match for some on the system. The NYPD detective felt only relief. That, finally, it was over. Whether Trish Sewell as she was calling herself at the time killed herself or was somehow murdered, she didn't care either way.

What mattered was she was dead and gone and if she was finally a victim herself, there was a poetic justice in that. She reached for a thick file on the shelf. It wasn't quite covered in dust but it had been there a long time. Since the first time that woman came into their lives. Though it was that of her long-term and regular partner, the dead woman was to plague and once came close to destroying his career.

Never mind what she cost Bobby in frustration and private worry about what she would do next. And at least he could return from his sabbatical in a few months, safe in the knowledge that was one problem he did not have to concern himself with. He was free from her twisted fascination with him and the world was a safer place.

As she opened the file with a frown, suddenly some of the answer was there. To that name had a strangely familiar configuration to the letters. _"TRISH SEWELL"_ and _"CHRISTINE FELLOWES"_. It could be a co-incidence of course, but it was a strange one if it was. She double-checked the letters in the two names. The professor of literature that bitch had used as part of her own clever scheme the first time they met her.

"Well those days are over for you at last Nicole" Eames said quietly.

**To be continued…**

_AN : If you want to know why Bobby is in Boston you might want to read "A Wide Open Country"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Wednesday 9****th**** January**

_**Office Of The New York City District Attorney**_

Eames had expected a call from that office when she sent over the news that the body of _Nicole Wallace/ Elizabeth Hitchens/Trish Sewell_ and probably another dozen alias', had been found in Iowa. They had as many open cases on her themselves. Crimes they would try to prosecute for if she had set foot in New York again. Always assuming they could find the missing piece of evidence or a witness willing to give useful testimony that had eluded them in the past.

She had not expected to see Jack McCoy himself. These days and in the _"top job"_ it was as much a political and PR role, as him having the time or inclination to dig out old files. And want a cop to assure him they could consign them to the basement. But then Ron Carver had handled all those cases involving Nicole, to his intense frustration at times. These days he was in private practice. So Eames assumed she was one of the few left around who knew them inside out. Jimmy Deakins was retired and rumoured to be on the golf course a lot of the time. And Goren was tucked up in Boston.

McCoy always did have an easy charm behind that determination and razor sharp mind and she had found herself drawn in by it. He had a reputation as a bit of a dog on the side too, though as they sat late afternoon together, Eames felt it was more the real lawyer in him who was getting a bit of a run out. Like a lot of good cops the further up the greasy pole you got the more you became distanced from the job made you _"good"_ in the first place. _Perhaps Jack just wanted to get his head round some extreme and old-fashioned crime more than budget papers or the signing of expenses forms?_

The time passed shockingly fast as Eames found herself responding to McCoy's questions and observations. So much so, his secretary had to come and remind him he was supposed to be somewhere else ten minutes ago. It was possible it was the rush to be out of his way, but it was only when she found herself in the dark and freezing street, Eames realised she had said _"yes"._ To the almost casual suggestion they meet up to eat at _The Jade Orchid_ in Chinatown later.

As she returned to 1PP she knew she would feel a total idiot backing out. Wasn't like she was some innocent convent girl and it was probably doing Jack a disservice. To assume he would want to lure her back to his place somewhere in Soho. Just she hadn't dated or even gone out much for almost three months. Not since she and Dave split up and the business with that creep Johnnie Belray in Arizona. Charmer, drug supplier, probable murderer and unfortunately number one or two in her all time list of _"great in the sack"._

Except Eames had not known those things in her haste to get her clothes off with him and that, along with some other stuff, had sent her for a while into counselling. If Nicole Wallace had been Goren's _"bete noir",_ Belray had been hers but at least he spotted what she was before things went too far. Eames had always suspected, but never said it to him, that her partner was initially attracted to Nicole. _Why not?_ In some ways and superficially she was his type, if he really had one.

Ironic too that both were now dead. Belray had been stabbed only two months into his remand having got the wrong side of, or failed to sufficiently charm someone in jail. Robbed everyone of some resolution not to see him tried for his crimes and yet at the same time Eames was relieved. She had a horrible suspicion, if only to humiliate her and cause a diversion, she might have been on his lawyer's list to call. It was a trip, an embarrassment and a skin crawling experience some con with a prison shank had saved her.

She didn't need _"saving"_ from Jack McCoy. Who probably just wanted company to eat on a night he wasn't committed to some function or fundraiser. And if he had ideas that might extend to breakfast, he was going to be disappointed.

**Saturday 26****th**** January**

**_Maximus, Madison Avenue, New York_**

It took her about ten minutes after she got inside to work out who were the people who counted in the club. The half dozen well dressed men and a couple of women, who were holding court to assorted followers who held onto every word and were probably freeloading on their cash. At first the short plump guy with a group in the corner seemed to be the likely target. Until you realised he was interested in the other young men more than the women at the table and she saw his hand almost in the crotch of a young Hispanic.

A foray to the rest rooms to listen to what other women were saying was always useful. Marty Clarkson had to be that big Italian looking type with a group near the bar. Apparently it was he supplied the coke she could hear two girls snorting in the next stall. And had _"beaten the crap"_ out of some guy called _"Weasel"_ when he objected to Marty banging his wife in exchange for a debt. From what she heard from the two of them who had both experienced Clarkson that way, _"banging"_ was the way he liked it too.

Sometimes you had to put up with a little short-term pain for long-term gain. She removed her panties in the stall and returned to the bar. One glance or two later and a quick _"Fatal Attraction"_ in his direction and she had his undivided attention.

A week later and she had a business proposition to put to him. Coke has a numbing effect if you pick the right place to rub it and Marty had more Colombian fuelled energy than anything could do much damage. More like a hamster than a mule, though she had told him the opposite and moaned appropriately at the size and effectiveness of his manhood.

**Wednesday 13****th**** February**

_**Quincy's Oyster Bar, Chatham St, Boston**_

Dr Caroline Reese touched her glass to his. "Happy day before Valentine's Rob"

"And to you Caro" he replied.

"Sorry we had to come a day early but you know I'm on call tomorrow night and you can bet your bottom dollar my cell will ring"

"Does seem to happen the moment we shift out the front door" Goren acknowledged. "Though if I'm honest…er…I had left it a bit late…to…um..book a table anywhere"

She laughed softly. "You can be honest to a fault sometimes and it really would not have mattered you know"

"I guess not"

He knew that was true. One reason he loved her was she didn't get so exercised by things like that. It was everyday that mattered not just the special occasions. To Caro, a flower he drew on the back of a cornflake box and gave her any day of the year would be as welcome as a dozen red roses tomorrow. Just as well, since he'd not ordered them either.

"So then?" she returned to her dessert. "What did you get for your essay has had your head filled for the last ten days?"

"Just a B plus" Goren muttered.

"What's wrong with that?" Caro shrugged. "Apart from the impossibly high standards you set to punish yourself if you don't live up to them"

"You quit the office now" he reminded her. "And Prof Lindstrom hates me"

Caro giggled. "You sound and look like a sulky fourth grader Rob. And of course he hates you. I think you're smarter and better looking than he is"

"You know him then?"

"Vaguely. His wife is on one of the hospital fund raising committees" she shrugged.

"And thanks for trying to make me feel better"

She poked at her fruit salad. "You know the answer don't you? You just need to be twenty-five years younger, female, adoring and quoting one of his coffee table texts back at him. The one he was on Oprah about or was it Larry King?"

"Both" Goren growled. "I swear I'll…I'll…well I don't know what next time he mentions their name in a tutorial"

"Harder than you thought?" she asked. "To stop being a cop and go back to being a student?"

"Sometimes"

"So quit. Except that's not in your vocabulary is it?"

He looked at her across the table. The expression said _"No"_ loud and clear.

"Caro?" his voice was hesitant. "Did you…you know…I realise it's a lot to take on and I shouldn't expect…"

"Yes" she said.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes Rob. I will. Or is that not the answer you really wanted?"

"Yes" he said hoarsely. "I mean no…oh hell…um…oh thanks you…you're sure…of course you…"

"Rob!" she said sharply. "Shut up?"

He put both hands over his mouth and she laughed softly.

"Now hurry up and eat. I've got plans for you tonight and it doesn't involve hitting the books. But you'll have to do better than B plus"

Goren laughed. "No pressure then Dr Reese?"

"None at all Detective"

_**To be continued…**_

_AN : If you want to know what happened to Alex (and Bobby) in Arizona you might want to read "A Friend Of Mine"_


	3. Chapter 3

**Friday 22****nd**** February**

_**The Excelsior Club And Spa, Miami**_

Frank Goren went to the place where the pre-occupied guest said his wallet was and to take ten bucks for a tip. Seeing the wad of bills inside, he helped himself to forty. Doubted the balding man would ever notice as he parked the trolley near the door and left. Not the way the drool was almost dripping from his mouth on to the fat stomach. As he leaned over a blimp-breasted redhead on the terrace outside the bungalow.

A trophy wife or maybe the girlfriend, with her tits and his gut it was amazing they could ever get close enough to do what was on his mind. Shoving the money in his pants pocket, Frank made his way back to the room service station. Give them a broad or their business to distract their attention and that happened four or five times a week. Women were different. They hung onto their purses and didn't invite you to go to them.

Such opportunities and occasional casual thefts of the sort not to alert security, helped keep the wolf from the door in a shit job with shit pay. But right now the sun of Florida and the anonymity of Miami suited him. He hated the winter in New York and hated more the idea of what Franco Belzoni would have done to him if he stayed. A few lousy Christmas trees was all it was, but when it came to a buck Franco had no _"goodwill to all men". _At any time of the year.

Perhaps if he had lost a couple of fingers to Belzoni's axe he'd been known to wield before when crossed financially, Robbie would have been happy? Chance to say, _"I told you so"_ in that smug, self-satisfied way and score a few points in his job for locking up Franco for doing it. Except his brother was no-where to be found when he went looking for help there. According to a neighbour the kid had gone away for a while. Believed to be holed up with some Doctor in Boston.

Typical of Robbie to find a dame like that. One would exercise the muscle between his ears more than she probably let him stretch the one between his legs. Though things were looking up for Frank. That kid Jackson was leaving the parking lot next week. Valet work meant more regular tips, chance to catch more rays and people often left all sorts of things in their cars. At his age he doubted he'd get many offers to get in the back seat and get paid for it. The way some of the young studs reckoned happened with the bored, rich broads who frequented the place.

**Saturday 1****st**** March**

**_Bridle Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut_**

Chester Lonsdale struggled in vain against the bonds, which held him firmly in the chair and moaned silently beneath the rag stuffed in his mouth and the duct tape round his face. Unable to do anything as a few feet away one of the black clad figures brutally raped his wife. Also bound, spread eagled and naked on their bed.

It was Saturday afternoon, broad daylight and there were at least four of them. Took them by surprise in the back yard and he assumed the fourth, smaller one was still downstairs perhaps keeping watch. Over powered and pushed inside they had no chance to resist or do anything. And if this were not bad enough the one who did all of the talking had shown them both something else.

A picture of Kelly and Selena. Their ten and twelve year old daughters. Taken at the soccer practice underway a couple of miles away and with an unspecified threat to do to them what that animal was doing to Maxine. He rolled off her with another grunt and reached for the condom he had used. There was no consolation in that, as with a nod from the leader, the second man undid his pants. He was already semi-aroused and began to stroke himself openly.

"Just a minute there" said the voice muffled by the ski mask but also odd sounding. "Now do we have your attention Chester?"

He nodded, unable to look at his wife sobbing through her own gag.

"You sure? Only I could still set Mr Pink there on your lovely wife. They don't have DNA on him so he won't need to be so careful, though I can't guarantee he is disease free of course"

Chester nodded again so hard the duct tape pulled on his thinning hair.

"Okay then. Put it away Mr Pink. Now listen carefully Chester and remember we have people watching you. One word, one teeny, tiny hint you went to the cops and Mr Green and I will have a back door party with your lovely daughters. Have those too short St Teresa's skirts up round their ears before Maxine there has gotten over enjoying Mr Green's attentions. You did enjoy it didn't you Maxine? More than old Chester here does for you. Or that fitness instructor at the gym you and the other ladies fantasise about"

How much he seemed to know about them and their lives just added to the terror.

**Monday 3****rd**** March**

_**Vestry Street, Soho**_

Jack's apartment wasn't large but Eames loved it, with the view over the Hudson and the distant trees of the New Jersey shoreline by day showing just the first hint of green. She had not had an invitation to spend the night the first time they went for dinner. Nor the second time and she supposed they were on their fifth or sixth kind of _"date"_ before he ever made any move on her.

Just as well or by then she might have made one on him and of the two of them, it was her slightly insisting on them being discreet. As two single people there was nothing _"wrong"_ about them seeing each other or sharing a bed a couple of times a week, usually at his place. But she was acutely conscious of his public position and what could be made of that.

When hacks had nothing better to write about, they wrote gossip. The fact McCoy wasn't a married man, certain to bring an acceptable and politically trained wife to social events, had been commented on in at least one column when he became the DA. Dragged up some old facts about him and one of his junior staff he never denied having an affair with. Just unfortunate he was still married to the second Mrs McCoy at that time.

There were all sorts of reasons for this not to work, not least their age difference and yet to her surprise it seemed to. And she was no more looking for a wise or older man to be a father figure, than Jack was looking to be some sort of mentor. Though as they got dinner he was rather handing out advice.

"I don't see what the problem is Alex" he scoffed in that rather rasping voice.

"Maybe I don't want the work and the hassle…watch those pans please Jack…it takes to be a Lieutenant"

"BS"

"Helpful"

He checked the roast and shut the oven door with his knee. "What you really mean is you couldn't handle it if you flunk first time round. So what? Most do"

"I know. But I don't think I'd want to go back into uniform. Find myself helping to police some backwater in Queens. Listening to the PTA complain about speeding in the school zone" Eames muttered. "And we both know that's the sort of berth I can expect for the first posting at the grade"

"Maybe you'll get The Bronx?" shrugged McCoy with a smile. "Where da PTA are the local block gang selling crack in the grade schools"

Eames laughed. "That makes me feel better. Almost"

"Should be proud Danny Ross even suggested it to you Alex. Plenty of cops in the city must be wishing their boss said that to them today. And that they have a genius to cook lamb as well as I do"

"And someone with your modesty?" she snorted.

"Lights are not best served hidden under a bushel. And I include yours. Trouble is Major Case has spoiled you"

"Really…those potatoes done?"

He gave them a poke. "Uhuh. So what do you have on your desk right now?"

"Two murders, a case of racketeering in the rag trade and the Deputy Mayor's missing nephew"

"And I see why the prospect of burglary, graffiti on Main Street and the butcher's missing dog don't thrill you Detective" Jack said draining the potatoes in the sink. "QED"

"That something legal Mr DA?" she teased him.

"Ha ha"

"I think I'll talk it over with Bobby first"

"And that's something else Al. Are you sure it's not Bobby you are really thinking of? And before you bite my head I do understand. It's hard to leave a partner that suits you but in a way you half did that already"

"I know" she said quietly. "Faith and now Matt until he moves out have been…different. Made me see I don't need Goren in the way I sometimes thought I did"

McCoy waited for her to get out the roast before he returned to the stove. "Nor does it follow Goren sees his plans the same as he did six months ago Alex"

"Not just himself to think of now you mean?"

Jack nodded as she began to carve.

_**To be continued…**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Friday 7****th**** March**

_**Service Road, La Guardia Airport**_

It was airport security that found the driver of the "_Maxload_" truck. Missing his distinctive red company coveralls and tied and bound in a ditch by the side of the road. Mildly hypothermic and with a lump on his head, he claimed he'd been hijacked.

It was a story the uniforms had heard before from drivers who knew they were carrying valuable loads. In Arnie's case, close to a million bucks worth of the first consignment of a new model laptop to arrive in New York. The sort of thing the "_techno geeks"_ had been eagerly anticipating and for which there would be a thriving underground market. To get one first and to get it cheap.

He told a good story down at the station, wrapped in a blanket, drinking a coffee and with a band-aid over the small cut. Unfortunately for Arnie, the local precinct detectives discovered some old juvenile raps on his sheet. While they were _"sweating"_ the driver to confess he was in on it, heavy rain was possibly washing away evidence of the other vehicles he claimed were involved.

**Saturday 8****th**** March**

_**Bridle Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut**_

Maxine shut the front door like a hound from hell had pursued her up the path from the mailbox. Assuring Kelly as she told her to quit kicking that ball in the hall, everything was fine. She and Chester had told both girls that a lot in the last week.

But they were suspicious. Why they had suddenly been stopped from taking the school bus and Selena was upstairs after a massive argument about missing soccer practice.

Then, amid bills and circulars, she opened an envelope to see a picture. Of her daughters getting out of the station wagon at St Teresa's one day in the past week. And a second. Selena's face superimposed on a pornographic picture and the words _"Sure your little girl will just love this"_ added in typescript. Maxine threw up in the kitchen sink.

**Monday 10****th**** March**

_**Tremont St, Cambridge, Mass.**_

Goren looked up from the paper to the chair the other side of the fireplace as Caro set aside the contents of a brown envelope she had been reading and reached for her coffee.

"Looks interesting" she said with a little smile.

"You don't mean that" he replied softly.

"You can tell huh? Of course you can. That's your job isn't it Rob?"

"Some of it. So talk to me Caro"

"Oh" she gestured like it didn't matter. "Just not as good as the ad suggested. Probably me being…professionally precious. Or maybe I just got an easy berth at the _General_? I'll look at it again later"

"No" he said shaking his head and uncrossing his legs. "If it's not right, it's not right for you. I want you with me in New York sweetie but I also want you to be happy. And if you are not…not enjoying…your work that matters a lot"

"And puts more on you to make me happy?"

Caroline said it in a voice he knew she was teasing him but also pointing out a real fact.

"Possibly…probably and it's not like it's something comes with nice regular hours or one I can leave behind at the door at five on a Friday and not think about again"

"It is only the first and there will be others. Just will take a little longer. Unless I apply for that and use it as chance to make the move quickly and then look around?"

"That's up to you Caro. But since we are looking to find somewhere new to live as well it could be better to know where you'll be working"

She smiled at him. "Guess we might get to know the airports and stations pretty well?"

Goren nodded, knowing the initial excitement of dashes up and down the East Coast might appeal for a while but he only had three more weeks of this. Of her beside him every night, of them being able to reach out and love each other when the mood was on them and of a domestic tranquillity he would probably miss almost as much. It was early days, but he was deeply conscious it was Caro taking most of the risks and disruption to her life and career to be with him. Something he would have done in reverse but for the real downsides for him to move to Boston PD in terms of the grade, the pay and the work. _Maybe they would have to re-consider that option in time?_

**Sunday 16****th**** March**

_**Crown Heights, Brooklyn**_

Mr Emmanuel _"Manny"_ Goldfarb was robbed of a hundred thousand dollars worth of uncut diamonds from his store/workshop as he opened it that morning. By three men were almost certainly disguised as Orthodox Jews would not be at all out of place in that area.

It was why he had barely given them a second glance when they came along the sidewalk as he unlocked the shuttered premises. And it wasn't just the threat of a gun made him open the safe, he told the officers who responded. When he managed to wriggle across the floor where he was left bound to trigger the alarm.

It was that someone was at his home with his wife Esther. Threatening to violate her and according to his spouse of thirty-five years, boiling up cooking oil on the stove. All they had to go on was she was sure the black clad figure was black when the gloves he was wearing separated from the cuff of his sleeve.

**Wednesday 19****th**** March**

_**La Fontana Di Amore, Grand St, Little Italy**_

"Yeah the linguine is great Al but you didn't answer my question" growled Jack.

"I'll think about it" Eames shrugged picking at her tortellini and thinking Mama Bertorelli gave them the same seats as once before.

The lunchtime she came here with Goren and he broke the news he was taking six months leave from the job. She smiled inwardly, remembering how awkward and nervous he was about it. No wonder she had begun to suspect he was about to tell her he and Caroline Reese were getting married or she was expecting his child.

"You don't have a lot of time to think about it and what's to think about? It's dinner at Gracie on Saturday that's all"

"Maybe _all_ to you Jack. But I don't drop in the Mayoral mansion every week"

"Neither do I" McCoy said sharply.

Eames could sense her hesitation and prevarication were annoying him.

"It's just what people will say"

"Who gives a shit what they will say Al!"

Finally he had erupted. But not so people could hear. He reached for the water jug.

"And tell you the truth I'm getting a bit sick of this. This…this almost secret thing…like we have something to hide or are doing something wrong. Or maybe I got it wrong? You don't want a relationship with me. Just dinner a couple of times a week and a fu…"

"No need to be so vulgar" Eames stopped him. "It's not like that Jack"

"Is from where I'm sitting"

He was right in some ways and Eames was not sure herself why she had twice turned down semi public occasions to go with him.

"I don't have anything to wear"

"Rubbish! I've seen your closets remember. And you got time to buy something if you must"

"I eat the peas off my knife"

"So do I. And the Mayor and two City Councillors I could name. One even drinks his soup from the dish"

Eames laughed. McCoy's lack of pretension was one of the many reasons he was either one of the best or the worst DA's the City had in a long time. Opinion was about evenly divided so far.

"Okay then"

"Oh don't sound so keen will you Al? The dining chairs are not made of razor blades you know" Jack snorted.

"You gonna finish that linguine?"

"Yes. Hands off"

Two hours later he wasn't saying that and Eames was tingling in anticipation as McCoy reached for the condom on the nightstand.

**_To be continued…_**


	5. Chapter 5

**Saturday 22****nd**** March**

_**"Lover's Lane", Elizabeth, New Jersey**_

It was a couple of teens that reported the _"Eversure"_ security truck, which had been _"missing"_ for almost twelve hours by then. Responsible sort of kids, who heard it on the news. How it vanished after making a collection at a Customs shed at Newark Airport and failed to respond to radio calls or arrive at its first destination.

Also missing from inside was a crate containing several items of antique silver had been on loan to a museum in Mexico for a year. Worth up to three hundred thousand dollars according to the owner. But Lieutenant Robbins had a bit of an _"itch"_ about him he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Other things were still inside. Including the two employees. It was Jake Mulgrew doing most of the telling of what happened. Luis Santiago, shot through the kneecap with one of their weapons, to encourage Jake to open the secure section of the truck, wasn't saying much by then.

Still possible he could lose part of his leg according to the paramedic as they loaded him in the ambulance. While New Jersey cops tried to get sense from Mulgrew and a CSU unit began to swarm over the truck.

**Sunday 23****rd**** March**

_**Bridle Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut**_

Maxine and Chester Lonsdale fought bitterly but quietly but their bedroom in case their daughters heard. He must be insane to even think about keeping the five thousand dollars in cash, which had arrived in the post the day before. No matter how much they could make use of the money.

And even more insane to think she had any interest in him _"that way"._ Barely stirred out of his pyjamas once a month until this happened and since she was _"had"_ by that animal, he'd changed. She was starting to think it turned him on and by the way, she burned that money so he could forget that too.

**Tuesday 25****th**** March**

_**Tremont St, Cambridge, Mass.**_

Goren surveyed the mild chaos around him in the room at Caro's that acted a mix of study and guest room. At how much _"stuff"_ he seemed to have acquired in the last six months and it was the same in other rooms of the house where boxes waited or bags needed to be packed.

She was probably right, and let's face it she usually was, that he would be better off leaving a lot of it. With luck and in a few months, they would have a lot of her home to pack up and move to New York and a few more boxes on the truck would make little odds. With more luck and though he didn't relish the prospect, they'd be packing up the apartment he'd lived in for ten years too.

Shifting it to some location, as yet unknown to make two homes and lives into a shared one. He decided to go make some coffee and stepping round things on the landing, decided the _"get everything out first"_ strategy was maybe not such a smart one after all.

**Thursday 27****th**** March**

_**Hillside House, Oyster Bay, Nassau County, Long Island**_

It was his daily cook/housekeeper who found the body of Mr Kenneth Jordan, a retired banker aged 73. On the floor of his study, which had also been stripped of his collection of American bronzes. She had no idea what they were worth, only they were quite old and were things like Indians and cowboys and charging buffalo. Strange passion for a man who had never been south of Washington or east of Pittsburgh in his life.

The ME was telling the Nassau County Sheriff it was quite likely natural causes, despite the fact he was trussed like a turkey and had one or two bruises. With Jordan's medical history the cook knew of and prescription medications in the bedroom, it could be heart or a diabetic coma killed him. Best estimate was he could have been there up to 18 hours before he was found and dead for 12 of them. Autopsy would say for sure.

**Saturday 29****th**** March**

_**Miami International Airport**_

She took the keys for the rented Lamborghini from the smooth young man who delivered it and put her one small bag inside. _Why travel with a lot of clothes when you can buy them when you get there?_ Ideal time for a trip to _Versace, Dior_ and _Gucci_ before picking a hotel.

Maybe she'd try this _Excelsior Club and Spa _place that boring bitch on the plane went on about? If there was one thing duller than middle class homemakers, it was rich ones. She felt she knew the details of every lunch the woman ever had as they sat together in First Class on the flight from New York.

Except her sort could be useful, if only to tell you the places that type hung out around town. The kind of ladies with time and money on their hands and often ripe for a little _"experimentation"._ Bored with the occasional attentions of rich husbands they whored themselves for in exchange for the lifestyle and with the tennis coach or pool boy. Who just wanted to put the same thing the same place.

Couple of weeks without Marty's _"pinky finger"_ to bother her would do just fine as well. He would probably spend his time and his share of their profit, filling his nose with fine white powder. So long as the moron did as he was told things would be fine.

"Drive carefully Mrs Jordan" said the delivery boy.

She hit the gas hard, almost running over his foot as years of Italian engineering know how roared into throaty life and what felt like two g's pushed her back into the leather. The only _"Italian Stallions"_ worth the name were a _Lambo _and a _Ferrari_. Men like Marty Clarkson, real name Michelo Chiarro, was more like _"My Little Pony"_ as a ride.

Now this was the life she was born to enjoy.

**Monday 31st March**

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

Even though he had called by a couple of times to see Father John, his apartment felt strange and slightly alien to be in again. Seemed very quiet on his own and lonely in a way Goren had not ever experienced much in his life before. The way it was led until now and turned out, it was just as well he was content at times _"with his own company"._

Solitude was something he even craved from time to time, as he went about unpacking a few things and checking all he had to do at 1PP tomorrow before he reported back for duty. Testing out on the range for one thing. Would be strange being back in a suit everyday and naturally he was a little anxious about returning to Major Case. He wasn't superstitious by nature, but _April the First_ wasn't the most propitious day and hopefully he'd get through it without making a professional fool of himself.

Give it a few days and it would be like he was never away and he'd get used to the changes. Like Bill Otway no longer being at that desk in the far corner. One Bill coveted because that was furthest from the Captain's office. Though he might have regretted that working very late one night when only he, Wheeler and Danny Ross had still been around. Luckily for Bill, the Captain realised he was having some sort of heart attack and he lived to medically retire and draw his pension.

Meant that buddy of Alex's, Matt Desmond, was staying on a bit longer but he seemed sound, if a bit _"space cadet"_ to Logan's mind. An opinion shared at the urinal in _Roark's_ at Christmas time when Goren had just got back from three weeks in Europe. But then Mike was a bit of a cynic and knew his own past history put a glass ceiling on his chances of further promotion. And after boarding successfully, Desmond was awaiting a slot to enable him to wear his own Lieutenant's insignia.

Goren was just concluding he could probably _"live with"_ the pale yellow John Dwyer had painted his kitchen, when his phone rang.

"Rob Goren"

"_You mean Detective Goren" said the female voice on the end._

"Hello Alex" he smiled. "Making sure that I came back?"

"_Of course. So how was the journey?"_

"Fine"

That wasn't true. It had pelted down with rain most of the way and the 1980 _Thunderbird_ it took him almost two years to re-build with the help of Lewis, might look and sound good these days. But the ventilation system was a piece of crap. That would probably be on its way too as part of his planning for the future. Not just financial but he and Caro were unlikely to really _"need" _two cars in the city and some rationalisation and maybe some bickering would be needed to settle _"what"._ So long as it wasn't a _"mini van"_ he'd be happy, but then she hated them too.

"_All ready and raring to go then?"_

"Was kind of hoping you'd be gentle with me Eames"

"_And I was kind of hoping you'd fill out some forms for the DA for me. You always were so much better with them Goren"_

"And you always relied on flattery Eames. Speaking of the DA, how is Jack?"

"_At his place preparing a talk for the Law School at Colombia later this week. But he's good. Anyway I'll let you go. Get yourself tucked up nice and early and ready for the fray"_

"Thanks" he muttered. "But thanks for calling. See you in the morning. And by the way Alex? I can fix my own screen saver now. Caro has far less patience with me than you"

"_Good for her" she snorted. "Sleep tight Bobby…I mean Rob"_

"Bobby's fine. Night Alex"

He glanced round the kitchen before turning out the light. As well he wasn't planning on staying here too long. That yellow really was close to bile and Father John could have avoided that job. But for a _"tiny fire"_ as he described it, that had left sooty smoke damage.

Must make time in the next week to get round to St Anthony's. Not to thank John for the decorating but see the sort of job they made of converting the huge parish house, which was why he'd been a temporary tenant for a while.

And whatever the job was going to throw at him there was one more shadow lifted from his life now Nicole Wallace was dead.

_**To be continued…**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Tuesday 1****st**** April**

_**The Excelsior Club And Spa, Miami.**_

"Careful you clumsy oaf!" she snapped as the idiot valet almost stepped on her foot.

Pathetic how some of them were so desperate for a tip they almost knocked you down in their haste to get out the shopping bags. Though this one she realised was different. Much older than the rest.

Then she noticed the name on his badge. Ended up giving him five bucks, not a couple to park the Lamborghini. And as the heels of her strappy sandals clicked across the faux marble of the lobby, she tried hard not to smile.

"_Small world"_ she thought to herself and began to think of a way of having some fun didn't involve snobby boutiques.

**Thursday 3****rd**** April**

_**Major Case Squad Room, 1PP, New York**_

"Goren!" said Faith Dempsey sharply as they made ready to leave together.

He looked at her a moment, removed from his pant's pocket the keys to the spare Mercury and handed them to her.

Captain Danny Ross smiled to himself watching them leave. Goren clutching his folder and almost having to bend at the waist. To hear what the softly spoken and rather tiny woman was saying to him. Could be those were the secrets that eluded him for so long. To get the guy's attention himself at times, for him to do as he was told or more accurately with Goren, to do it the way Ross wanted him to on occasions.

Some routine re-interviews to help out Logan and Wheeler might not be Goren's idea of _"intellectually challenging"_ but it was another way of easing him back in. And enabling Ross to juggle assignments between personnel that seemed to be changing on a weekly basis. Carol no sooner returned from her maternity leave, when Bill Otway went sick. The Captain would wonder when he left some evenings, which detective would be missing or what strange face would be at a desk the next morning.

Ross returned to his office where the personal files for some possible replacements awaited him on the desk. Hopefully there would be a name amongst them who had the required skill set, who would _"fit in"_ with the notoriously mixed bunch who made up the Squad and could be available before Matt Desmond got his first promoted posting.

As to Bobby Goren, it had come as little surprise when he returned from his sabbatical he wasn't interested in going for the Lieutenant's grade, that his time served and his record especially, justified. He had turned it down once before. When he had just found out his Mom was dying and no question was both pre-occupied and with every moment of his spare time committed. Now he had happier reason to have other priorities and it was becoming common knowledge, even before Goren said it _"semi officially"_ to Ross, that he was setting up home with Caroline Reese as soon as she could get a job in New York.

Ross understood when they talked why there were practical things to be settled, other priorities for him right now and unlike some senior officers, he was not as _"sceptical"_ or even _"suspicious"_ of the man's other reason. That he wanted to concentrate on study for a master's in Criminology, more than the sort of procedures and regulations would fall to him to enforce as a Lieutenant somewhere. Would not necessarily be suited to helping run a precinct anyway.

Goren was going to be a busy man with all that and apparently had offered to help Eames study as well. Whether that would prove to be a blessing or a curse for her was yet to be tested. It had taken Ross some persuading to get her to do it at all and he suspected Jack McCoy might have had a role in that. _And who could have seen that one coming?_

Ross turned to the files, aiming to get the job done before he was due at one of the Chief's quarterly, informal _"lunches"_ he held to draw together disparate groups of officers from all over NYPD. To _"sound them out"_ on some idea and give them chance to chew the fat a little on shared problems.

**Saturday 5****th**** April**

_**St Anthony's Parish House, Brooklyn.**_

Goren was impressed by the job the Diocese had done to convert the property. In the past, the turn of the century building would have been a fairly palatial home to perhaps four priests, a couple of curates, a live in housekeeper and maybe an additional servant. Those days were gone and long before John Dwyer became the incumbent, his single predecessors were rattling around in a piece of underused real estate.

Now it was a small _"group home"_ for recovering addicts mainly from various forms of substance abuse and provided a modest four-room apartment for Father John. They stood in the little kitchen together.

"So when will you be full?" he asked taking the mug of coffee.

"Soon as we can get the rest of the social work input" said Dwyer removing his Roman collar and unfastening the top of the shirt.

"Hardest part has been juggling medical and City services into place Robbie. I still have a parish to run and that was a condition of the laity, the churchwardens especially"

Goren sipped his coffee. "Afraid this would bring into the community an undesirable element that would run amok?"

"Can't blame them. You know as well as any, the sort of records a lot of former addicts have to feed their problem in the past and the poor success rate in turning them around"

"True. And by the way, you can have for this place or for fundraising any of my decent spare furniture and other things. Unlikely Caro and I will need two sets of pans or an ice cream maker I don't think I ever used anyway"

"You're a good man" said the priest stirring in sugar to his tea. "Or would be if you were here asking me to fix a date for your wedding, not reminding me you are planning to live in sin"

"Is it a mortal one these days Father?" Goren shrugged. "I forget"

Father Dwyer smiled. He'd probably done as much as he could on that front with his boyhood friend and in any case he knew Caroline Reese was never any kind of Catholic. Did not know if Robbie had even asked her to marry him and been turned down on that suggestion. And didn't want to pry or embarrass him if that was the case.

"Speaking of family…" he said quietly. "I had a letter from Frank a few days ago"

Goren glanced up quickly and Father John could not read the expression on his face. Whether it was shock, interest, concern or a good attempt at indifference he suspected his friend did have to _"work on"_ to maintain. He succeeded in conveying the latter anyway. With the word and tone.

"Really"

"Yeah. Seems he's down in Miami. Actually working. Sent me back the money you know I gave him at Christmas"

"That is a miracle then…"

"Robbie? Is there any…any chance you'd like to see it? He did ask after you?"

"No. He knows where I am"

Father John sighed and changed the subject.

**Tuesday 8****th**** April**

_**Bank Of America, Wall St, Manhattan**_

Chester Lonsdale opened a new account just in his name and with two thousand dollars cash. He reached the mailbox before Maxine on Saturday and she knew nothing of it. Of course he knew where the money came from. Those animals that had raped her, threatened their kids, ruined their lives and now had him at their mercy.

Worse. He was on their payroll in taking the money. He immediately transferred nineteen hundred into the _"college fund"_ for their daughters. Maybe something _"good"_ could come from this shit. Just wished as he returned to his office that Maxine would go get some help from one of those _"Rape Crisis"_ centres. They said they were confidential. _And maybe it was over?_ There had been no calls for days now.

_**To be continued…**_


	7. Chapter 7

**Thursday 10****th**** April**

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

"Do you have any _'Post It'_ notes Goren? I ran out"

"There's a stationary cupboard in the lobby Eames" he muttered, but still opening his desk drawer.

"I know but I wouldn't want to deprive you of your trips there. I know how much you enjoy them"

Goren slid a small pad of them over their desks to his partner.

"I'm the only one leaves it tidy for sure"

"Don't you have any pink ones?" Eames asked him.

The look in return was enough. There was only ever so far you could go with Bobby at times. Though Eames suspected what really ailed him today and she would not be so cruel as to tease him about that. Any _"frustration"_ he was suffering right now was about far more than the physical.

She had barely turned to pick up her phone when some pink _"Post it"_ notes slid over to join the white ones.

_**The Excelsior Club and Spa, Miami**_

Frank rolled off her clumsily and with another of those porcine grunting noises he had made several times. She fixed a smile on her face, to let him assume her agreement with the immature and unsophisticated remark he made about how good the sex had been.

Timing was everything in that and his was lousy at every, thankfully brief, stage. Her own was far better. Getting him here during one of his breaks and not giving him what he came hoping for until the last minute.

It meant as she gave him a final stroke and turned away feigning sleepy satisfaction; Frank wouldn't be around for long. Indeed, almost the next sound was that of him removing the rubber with a _"twanging"_ noise and then heading for the bathroom.

She let him ramble on; responding with non-committal sounds as he washed up and got dressed. Then timed to perfection, getting up to give him a good look at what he had enjoyed, promising him another opportunity and going to her purse.

The money, Frank assured her was _"just a loan"_ over some brief financial trouble, she did not expect to see again. But as he left and she went immediately to fill the tub to soak away any sense or trace of him, she was thinking.

About the Bible. How Cain _"rose up and slew"_ his younger brother, Abel. If history repeated itself and Bobby killed Frank or it was the other way round, she didn't much care. Either would achieve her ends. Whichever Goren brother ended in the Land of Nod, East of Eden.

Though she suspected it was only Bobby would know that was where Steinbeck got the name for his novel. Frank would do well to know it was a movie with James Dean.

**Friday 11****th**** April**

_**St Teresa's School, Nr Greenwich, Connecticut**_

Joseph _"Slugger"_ Haslam was surprised the school playing field had only wire fencing round it and he had no clue how you played lacrosse. He turned the _Nikon _with its powerful lens and found Serena Lonsdale.

As it whirred, he focussed in closer on those tight little butt cheeks in blue shorts. What idiot allowed girls that age to do _phys ed_ dressed that way? Watching her quickly ease them from between the crack, he smiled and felt the reason for his nickname twitch.

He set the camera down almost hoping her scared rabbit of a Daddy stopped co-operating. Give him excuse or reason for a little fun with the just budding Serena.

Seeing the first of the _"Mommy mobiles",_ a station wagon, draw up, he started the engine of his car and drove away.

_**The Eames Family Home, New Jersey**_

Eames stood at the sink washing lettuce and half listening to the conversation between her sister and sister-in-law. It was the first family barbeque of the year and the first time she had brought Jack to meet her family.

Perhaps he was right, that there was some inverse snobbishness in her. That her folk's place was not _"grand"_ enough or too ordinary. An accusation he made when she had hesitated, yet again, to include him in a visit. And maybe she did forget McCoy came from very similar, almost identical in fact, origins himself.

That office, his title, the salary and all the trappings came with it, were not things he or his cop father probably expected when he was the age of her nephew. Out there on the grass with _"the guys"_ and Jack occasionally kicking a soccer ball to him. Between drinking beer from a bottle, chewing the fat and probably hearing Dad's opinions on crime, the law and how it was enforced since he was a cop.

Not something he was quick to hold back on any time. Eames not sure if her father was impressed by the District Attorney for New York City being in his back yard or just seeing McCoy like any other man. Casting that paternal and sometimes sceptical eye over his _"suitability"_ to be dating his daughter, like he had since she was in High School. She suspected knowing Dad and Jack there would be no trouble there. They would be bosom pals before the night was out.

Her Mom was a different matter and had been from the start, though she had been polite enough to him. Her concern had been and still was, rather different. Not so much the age difference or that old scandal about McCoy's marital infidelity. But what all that _"said"_ about Jack. That with his track record and with a daughter only about a dozen years Al's junior, he was unlikely to be the settling or marrying kind. Nor to want kids and when she discovered Julie was six months pregnant, Mom's silence had said it all.

Eames turned from the sink. What Mom never asked of course, was whether she wanted those things. With McCoy or anyone else for that matter. Truth was, she still did not know herself. But those counselling sessions had at least made those conflicted feelings easier to live with. They had been there for a longer time than Eames had admitted to herself.

**Saturday 12****th**** April**

_**Tremont St, Cambridge, Mass**_

"Gnah"

Goren kept his arm round Caro wriggling his sleepiness, his comfort, his sense of well being and the hangover of his physical satisfaction against her nakedness. One thanks to _Amtrak_ and a delay with the train, they did not get to share until gone midnight.

He could sense from the light and the warmth building in the room the morning sun shone into, it was not exactly early. But all of his senses as he nuzzled the back of her neck were just _"enjoying"_ what he had missed. More than it was probably decent at his age to admit.

"Don't start what you can't finish Rob" she teased him easing his hand off her breast.

"I could for you" he half muttered, half offered as she shifted and turned.

She stroked his face with her fingers. It made that rustling sound of more than twenty-four hours since he last shaved.

"Maybe later? I want to get those plants potted up"

"Oh I should have guessed there would be a list of things waiting for me to do Caro"

"Shut up" she said kindly wriggling out of his arms.

"And I have some news for you"

In his still sleepy state Goren felt his heart skip and a mild sense of panic. Surely she did not mean _"that"_? No, she would not have waited until now to tell him _"that"._ Not when _"that"_ was not something they discussed or planned. _Or would she?_ Memory could fail anyone and nothing was infallible, though try telling that to the Pope, who would see _"that"_ as nature's plan.

His face must have said it all because Caro laughed softly and said "No not _that_"

_Or perhaps his other suspicion was correct? She really was a witch after all._

_**Bridle Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut.**_

Maxine Lonsdale's hand shook when she saw the thick brown envelope amongst the post she had just collected.

"I'm going to meet the others at the mall" said Serena as she came into the kitchen.

"No you are not!" she snapped. "You can go tidy your room and then you are going to Granny's while your father and I…"

"Oh Jeez mother!" her daughter kicked the dishwasher door shut. "I'm not going to shoot up in the rest rooms or open my legs for Mickey Roberts in the bushes of the parking lot!"

"Just you mind your mouth Serena! And don't blaspheme"

"You know what? You can get stuff for your menopause or what ever else got into you" her angry woman/child retorted. "Oh Christ…it's not…you're not knocked up are you?"

Maxine slapped her face hard, just as Chester and Kelly stepped in from cleaning out the rabbit cage.

**Thursday 17****th**** April**

_**Somewhere In Westchester County**_

William Moffat lay in the trunk of his Lexus listening to the three men outside arguing. About the fate of the fourth that he had shot when they held him up on his way between his two jewellery stores.

His own shoulder where he took a slug in return hurt like hell, but from where he was he could hear the groans of the man shot in the belly as they drove here. Moffat heard the voice of the man who seemed to be in charge, telling someone to take the briefcase in which he had been transporting stock.

And then the sound of a pistol shot. Moffat could guess the fate of the wounded robber and could not stop the warm wetness between his legs. He had a good idea what his own would be now. He began to say the Lord's Prayer for the first time in perhaps forty years.

**Friday 18****th**** April**

_**East 91**__**st**__** Street, Manhattan**_

She took one last glance round the large and expensively furnished living room and turned to the unctuous letting agent.

"I'll take it" she said.

"Excellent" he smiled. "Now we just need to settle the matter of the security deposit and the first two months rent Ms Archer"

She opened her purse to give him details of her bank in Portland. It would make a great place to play _"house"_ with Frank Goren and she could hardly wait to see Bobby's face.

_**To be continued…**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Monday 21****st**** April**

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

"Don't get too comfortable in those seats" said Ross stepping from his office.

Goren didn't point out he had been in the office half an hour before the shift was due to start, fifteen minutes before Ross himself and Eames had yet to sit down.

"Oh great" hissed Eames. "Ten says it's a Monday morning body"

"No bet" replied her partner as their Captain arrived at their desks, coffee in one hand and a slip of paper in the other.

"As yet unidentified male body for you. Fresh from the East River"

Eames rolled her eyes and finished her take-out coffee collected at the place near Jack's apartment. It was fast getting to the point where Ernie had both their regular orders waiting for them Monday morning.

"Couldn't we just push it back in and leave it to the _Harbor Patrol_ boss?" she asked.

"Not when it's washed up on the Mayor's back lawn no you can't Detective" said Ross handing Goren the note where he had scrawled a few details.

"No pleasing you is there Eames? Ever since Bobby came back you've wanted a case for the two of you to start from scratch. Now you got it and you are still complaining"

"It comes with wearing a bra Captain" she smiled.

"I suspected as much. So why are you still here?"

She dumped the coffee container in the trash and picked up the keys to the SUV as Goren zipped shut his folder and grabbed his mackintosh. Spring wasn't so much late this year as undecided from one day to the next, whether it had arrived.

"Good weekend?" she asked him as they headed for the elevators.

"Not really"

You didn't need to be a great detective to work out who and what he was missing these days Eames concluded. There was only so much a master's thesis could satisfy even if it was keeping him _"occupied"_ in an intellectual sense.

"You?"

"Okay" she lied.

Why it was really _"great"_ was something best kept to herself she decided. It wouldn't help Goren and there were certain things they had never shared details about and were unlikely to start now.

_**Carl Shultz Park**_

Strictly speaking that was where the body of a middle-aged man was, though it was in sight of the 1799 house built by a wealthy merchant and acquired by the City in 1887. Initially, it had been the first home of the City Museum but the corpse the ME was already checking out when they arrived, was very close to the current boundary with what eventually became the Mayor's official residence.

Doc Hathaway was one of those who did not like to be interrupted as he turned it over and shoved something like a huge meat thermometer in the side. Liver temperature was the most accurate early means of giving them a possible time of death.

One of the smaller _Harbor Patrol_ boats was idling close by in the river having deployed one of their divers to help haul the body fully ashore. Eames took the report from the first patrol car to arrive and spoke briefly to the finder. A female dog walker, who looked fairly shaken up and whose six charges were tied to the back fender and variously impatient to be going or watching intently all that was happening.

"Drowning is probably your cause" said Hathaway as they arrived by the body and handing Eames a wallet.

"Fell off a boat or a jumper?" she asked looking at the clothing.

The medic nodded to Goren for help and they turned him over. There was a linear contusion on the top rear of the almost bald head.

"Whichever it was he hit his head on the way, was struck by something in the water or was hit first" the doc shrugged.

Eames wrinkled her nose, despite seeing him do it before and worse. As Goren rubbed his gloved fingers in some revolting looking liquid must have come from the stomach or lungs in the process of getting him out of the water or the initial exam.

He sniffed. "No smell of alcohol"

"Blood's will tell you" said Hathaway. "But see this sort of line down the centre of the contusion? Like one surface was slightly set back from the one joining it"

"Narrow and flat object" said Goren lifting the head.

"Wasn't robbed judging by the wallet" said Eames checking through it. "Credit cards say L. G Pearce. Correction. Linton Pearce and drivers licence is an address in Dobbs Ferry. Surely didn't go in the water right up there?"

"Unlikely" said the medic. "Need to calculate for the water temperature to be precise, but this guy hasn't been dead more than 20 hours I'd say"

Goren stood up. "The current would not have brought him this far this fast. More likely to have gone down the Hudson if he fell in up there"

He looked in the upstream direction.

"Would have caught up on a weir or something before he made it this far."

Eames watched him about to wave to the Harbor Patrol guy and then stop. Then pull out his gun and look at it. Before bending down and turning it sideways, parallel with the contusion.

"Well that fits the bill nicely" she said seeing Goren's _Glock 19_ alongside the bruise. "Do you have an alibi for yesterday? You and all the other cops carry one of those?"

She herself opted for the _SigSauer_ but knew Bobby had stuck with the pistol that he had been used to in the Army.

"Think it's a bigger model" he mused. "If it was the side of one of these which hit him. Unconscious he would have drowned a lot quicker. Not much debris stuck to the clothing. Not like he went in from the shore or somewhere muddy. Any obvious fractures Doc?"

The medic shook his head. They were typical with falls from bridges because of impact with the water.

"A boat then" said Goren as he stood up.

"Wonder if there are reports of stolen boats?" said Eames. "I'll get patched over to our nautical buddies from the patrol car"

She handed Goren the licence to let him make the calls on that. Not least to find out if the woman looked the right age to be a wife pictured in the wallet, had reported him missing.

_**Room 592 Lennox Hill Hospital**_

Mrs June Pearce was not in good shape when they brought her in yesterday the doctor explained to Eames and Goren. Suffering from hypothermia, she was awash inside with a mixture of river water and a large quantity of brandy. Would have drowned but for the life jacket and smelling the booze on her, the citizens who pulled her from the water assumed the same as them to start off with. Drunk fallen overboard.

Except, she went on to say they became more suspicious of foul play when their _"Jane Doe"_ turned out to be wearing no panties when they undressed her and exam showed evidence of either very rough sex or rape. Just strange despite them reporting it, there had been no enquiries from the police or family as yet. Certainly was an otherwise well dressed lady with good quality clothes.

Goren was going through the items they had bagged as the doctor spoke about the story she began to tell when she regained consciousness after sedation that morning. Whether she was a fantasist or hysterical they had no way to tell and had been waiting on a psychiatric consult when they got the call from NYPD they were on their way. The one thing she had not said was her name and it was almost as if she was afraid to for some strange reason.

He indicated the watch to Eames. It was stopped at 2.34, which was probably a good guess clue as to the time she went in the water. Had been pulled out by some boating enthusiasts between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in the area of John Jay Park.

They went into the room quietly and it was Goren who said _"Mrs Pearce"_ very gently and softly.

She opened her eyes and almost immediately went into hysterics yelling things like _"It's him! Get him away!"_

There were times when he knew from dealing with his own mother, kindness and reason was not going to work and the best place for him was in the hallway. He left Eames and the young doctor to try and calm her and get something from her while he called the cops in Dobbs Ferry again. The Pearce's had been reported _"missing"_ by their housekeeper when they were not there when she reported for work that morning. Something they took no real action on and for understandable reasons in some ways.

Two fit adults who had gone down to a boat yard in New Jersey on Saturday to pick up their new _"toy"_ had perhaps decided to stay out longer or maybe had some mechanical problem. Even if they were the sorts of people to call her if they changed their plans. They now had the _"pleasure"_ of telling the daughter waiting anxiously at her folk's house for news, that her mother was found and arranging for her to get to the City to ID the body looked like her father.

"Did we ever deal with a case of piracy before?" Eames asked grimly when she finally emerged.

"No" Goren zipped his folder and picked up the bag of clothes for their CSU people to examine.

"Reason she went hysterical was seeing you in that dark coat Bobby. One of the three or maybe four men who boarded their new boat yesterday afternoon was your sort of height and build and wearing black. Though she never saw his face"

"Shit" he muttered as they waited at the elevator. "How did they get on?"

"Pulled the _'broken down need help'_ trick. Only on water and it was a young woman and a smaller built guy they thought they were assisting. Next thing they knew, Linton was having a gun waved at him, the masked men came aboard and she thinks the other boat went away"

"Was she…raped?"

"Uhuh. Though I get the impression from her that was the idea of the man who did it. The leader…this big guy…dragged him off her" said Eames. "Doc confirmed to me the rape kit was negative for semen aside from her being in the water about two hours before she was spotted. If that's when the watch stopped"

"And the husband? Does she know what happened to him?"

His partner shook her head and said nothing, as there were other people in the elevator when they boarded. On the first floor and on the way to the SUV he got the rest. How it happened up by Mill Rock Park, the tiny island where the Harlem and East Rivers met. And how June Pearce assumed Linton was still alive somewhere else on the boat when brandy was more or less poured down her throat and she was thrown overboard.

Eames had left the job of telling her Linton Pearce was dead to the doctor. Goren was calling the _Harbor Patrol_ to get a search started for a sixty-foot cruiser called _"The Pelican"._ But given what little Mrs Pearce knew of its speed and tank capacity and the 18 hour or so head start, who knew where it would be by now. Last known to be heading south on the East River he was telling their despatch.

And motive was easy to work out. _"The Pelican"_ had cost the Pearce's close to half a million dollars and now one of them their lives.

_**To be continued…**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Tuesday 22****nd**** April**

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

Goren lay on the sofa staring at the ceiling. Defying his head to start aching or his stomach cramping after the day he had and after bolting down too much lasagne too quickly between working. Mom always said it was bad for the digestion and used to make him quit reading at the dinner table. Almost as often as she told Frankie she wished he would read more. Like his brother.

He wasn't prepared to dismiss that the early symptoms of a headache and indigestion were down to Frank as well. He assumed it was Caro returning his call when the phone rang. So his brother from Florida was a surprise and not necessarily one of the pleasant kind. At least he wasn't in trouble or wanting money, but the conversation was very one-sided.

Lots of cheery words and enquiries from Frank like it were not more than a year since they last spoke. When he'd told Frank in effect he wanted nothing more to do with him. Everyone had their limits, he was turning his life around and didn't need Frank dragging him back into the slough of guilt and despair he had been in since Mom died and which he was partly responsible for.

And that Frank was stupid not to realise he didn't just mean then and that moment, as he more or less threw him out of the apartment. For nigh on thirty years and now Mom was gone, there was no reason for him to feel obligated to him any longer.

Once or twice in the brief conversation, when Frank talked about coming back to New York and some plans he had for the future, Goren sensed his sibling bite down. The temptation to start to whine or more likely become abusive because he wasn't responding positively to all his vague notions about them getting together and being _"one happy family"_ again. There had been little of that at times in his life and whilst he knew Caro would almost certainly go along with what he wanted, it would take more than one call not asking for money, before he'd be rushing to invite Frank for dinner.

That had been the frosting on the cake on a day of frustration. Needless to say _"The Pelican"_ had not been spotted and the _Harbor Patrol Division_ whilst helpful, had not built up his and Eames hopes. With a terrifying list of moorings in their jurisdiction it could be holed up. Never mind the calculations they made of how far a boat suitable for coastal waters could have travelled in two days.

Linton Pearce, as expected had drowned, though with hairline crack in his skull and bleeding beneath he would have been lucky to survive unaffected even without the East River filling his lungs. So far a _Glock_ was the closest CSU came to identifying what hit him and it tied in with the vague description of the gun Mrs Pearce was able to give them.

Or rather Eames, who had worked patiently with a shrink and occasionally him, now she was over her initial trauma. But a hospitalised and badly distressed witness was not the best when it came to descriptions. Especially as all the men she really saw were masked. She turned out to have been in the galley getting lunch when Linton slowed the boat saying he was going to see if he could help this couple.

It meant her view of the people who flagged them down was restricted and she was overpowered whilst still below decks. Tied hands and feet over a small table she wasn't in a position to see or hear a lot of went on. But the threat of raping her was used to force Linton to explain the boat controls and some other things. June Pearce was obviously not the sailor in the family, but her distinct impression was none of the three or maybe four men, knew much about boats. And the only one she really heard speak was the _"big man". _The one closest to Goren himself for height and weight.

The description of him sounding like _"Don Corleone"_ was interesting, in the sense both he and Eames had known people stuff cotton wool in their cheeks to disguise the voice. It might suggest there was something distinctive about it. Like a lisp he wanted to disguise. The database had not thrown up any _"knowns"_ with speech defects fit the rest of the description. Among the general criminal population currently at large or that section with _"previous"_ for crime involving boats.

How large that was and that there was a market in _"stealing to order"_ the same as luxury cars was news to Goren. _Perhaps that explained the headache?_ He was in an area of crime, despite growing up in sight of the New York waterways and almost the Atlantic, which was alien to him. As an environment anyway, since you had assume material gain was the reason for stealing the boat.

But no one they or the State Police found amongst the Pearce's social and business circle suggested the sort of people would know about _"The Pelican"_ and aim to steal it. If anything, their friends owned bigger boats themselves and the one slim possibility had temporarily alienated a major source of information in Dobbs Ferry. Thanks to some heavy handed State cop discovering the housekeeper's elder son had previous for car theft.

He was alibied flipping burgers and despite the local enthusiasm, there was nothing in his record Goren or Eames could see suggested he had the sort of criminal contacts necessary. To organise a small and ruthless gang that probably had a buyer lined up for the boat. But it stalled things temporally with his mother who was being asked to think of anyone strange making enquiries or any unusual telephone calls.

Eames and he had also struck out at the boat builders. The place in New Jersey had supplied the boat and done some customising mainly of the interior, after taking delivery of a standard model from the builders who were in Maryland. No one there had a criminal record, they were open and helpful and didn't make them feel any better as a result.

Showed them how quickly and easily the boat's appearance could be changed temporarily. With the use of the same sort of _"peel off"_ stripes and motifs you could buy for doing a quick _"customise"_ on a car. The type of thing a professional like Lewis abhorred, but spotty teens and boy racers did all the time to make small five doors look _"hot rod". _

Usually to impress women, though the number of places sold such things to the public didn't impress Eames, assuming they even used decals and stripes aimed at the marine market. Temporarily, if the gang had disguised _"The Pelican" _to moor it up somewhere, they could have bought and used supplies from auto parts stores.

That left one avenue for them to chase tomorrow. The origin of the boat _"the young couple"_ had. From the vague description from the soup-stirring Mrs Pearce and the best guess of the _Harbor Patrol,_ it was one of those small day cruisers. The sort dozens of places hired. Though when you aim to steal a half million-dollar floating _"gin palace"_ buying one used or even stealing it, wasn't out of the question.

The person who got the best look at them was dead and maybe that was why, though from what June Pearce said she suspected Linton who had been in the Reserve, might have made an attempt to fight. It was when the man began to rape her and she screamed that she heard scuffling _"up top"._ Her beliefs that her husband was tied up in one of the other cabins more hope than expectation she now realised. When the _"big man"_ began to funnel booze into her and make her put on a lifejacket, she assumed they would do the same to him and then push him overboard too.

As his phone rang, Goren hoped to hell it wasn't Frank trying again, though he had earlier said he had to head to work. He didn't believe he was some kind of deputy manager or whatever yarn he spun for one minute and when he picked up, it was the person he hoped it would be.

Caro told him she had been called back to the General earlier and by the time the call ended Goren felt better. For one thing she had news that she was getting a meeting at _Bellevue_ next week about a job. That world was a relatively small one and the possibility of something opening up there was the news she had for him last weekend. She had put out _"feelers"_ among her contacts and he knew _Bellevue_, world renown for its work in psychiatry and psychology, would please her.

As usual she made him laugh even though because of that, she would not be in New York at the weekend as originally planned. Offered to make it up to him with phone sex and said things made him both blush and mentally turn on. Before making out he was some kind of pervert for responding. And then when he stopped, saying he was not to. Forget him, she needed it and to keep talking _"dirty"_ to her.

Caro really was _"a headache"_ to him at times and one he wanted to have with him every day. And as soon as possible.

_**To be continued…**_


	10. Chapter 10

**Wednesday 23****rd**** April**

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

Goren and Eames were hitting the phones trying to identify where a small _"day cruiser"_ might have been hired. They started up in the area near Mill Rock Park given where _"The Pelican"_ was taken over and what the Harbor Patrol had said about the fuel capacity and other features of such boats.

It was little wonder they got one or two _"you must be kidding me"_ responses from the proprietors. Asking about lettings to couples on a Sunday in spring was a bit like asking if there were a lot of Irish in New York. Others were positive because they issued life jackets on an individual basis. So they could be sure which hiring was to two adults or which boat went with two adults and two kids. One or two even tried to be more helpful since they could recall this couple were black or that pair too young to be the _"early thirties and both white"_ was about all Goren and Eames had.

Goren was just about to try the next on his list when Ross asked to speak with him about something. He was not exactly thrilled with what he heard and did try to wriggle out of it with no success. But when he got back to his desk, Eames was ending a call with a pleased look on her face.

"Think we might have something Goren" she said. "That was Westchester County PD"

"New Bedford?" he frowned.

"Uhuh. But just listen to this. Last week, Thursday the seventeenth to be precise, a William Moffat who owns jewellery stores there and in Pleasantville vanished. He was travelling between the two places carrying seventy grand's worth of stock"

She glanced at her notes.

"Seems there is some kind of domestic issue going on because at first the wife suspected he might have run off with some girlfriend. But by Saturday morning his Lexus turned up, burned out near White Plains. And unusually the trunk was very badly incinerated"

"Which usually means there was something in it someone especially wanted to destroy. Blood stains for example"

"Exactly what the County cops concluded. Especially when the CSU people managed to find on a door panel some blood spots the fire didn't destroy. Blood, which doesn't match Moffat's. Now if I also tell you he was licensed to carry because of moving stock to and fro like a few merchants are in the City, what does your grey matter tell you?"

"Moffat was possibly held up and shot the person or one of them who did it. So what about the boat hire?"

Eames rolled her eyes "You are no fun to tease do you know that Goren?"

He shrugged.

"Since they thought it might lead them to Moffat, if he did stage something and run off or to the assumed robbers, Westchester left one of his credit cards in play. It got used once. On Sunday, to hire a day cruiser from _Turner's Boathire_. It was them put me on to the fact New Bedford were already making enquiries"

Eames tossed over the details she had noted down. As he scanned it, Goren could see that subsequent exam by a CSU team from State had turned up nothing useful on the boat, but the vague descriptions from the boatyard owner of the couple allegedly _"Mr and Mrs Moffat",_ broadly fit those given by Mrs Pearce.

She could see it piqued his interest more than a little. When the Goren brain was in _"top gear"_ he got twitchy and fidgeted.

"Okay then. If it's the same people they've gone from jewellery to a large boat in three days. Could be a Westchester origin for this? Same County as the Pearce's reside and out of our jurisdiction"

"Sergeant Courtney doubts it" replied Eames. "Nothing fits with their local villains they've shaken down on the Moffat thing. Unless it's a city crew moved up there for a while. They are now mounting a search for the jeweller's body"

"Good luck to them on that one. Amount of open country and water they've got up there"

"More or less what I said. Question now is are we looking at one and two in a series or numbers three, four and five? And before you ask, nothing else on the books in Westchester looks to come anything close"

Eames saw that half smile on his mouth. "If I go get us a coffee will you run the check Eames?"

"Because I'm so much better than you with the _Crimintell_ database?"

"Of course"

"Throw in a doughnut" she said turning to her screen. "And tell me what Ross wanted…unless it was personal…and you got a deal. Fifty grand as starters? Last three months?"

"Why not?" Goren got up from the desk.

_**Major Case, Interview Room 1**_

Captain Ross stepped through the door with a glance at a map and charts Goren was working on. And then at the doughnut on the table he had yet to eat.

"Apart from eating doughnuts what are you two doing?" he asked picking up the one with chocolate sprinkles and taking a bite.

"There's a very strong chance of a link between the missing boat and the disappearance of a man and a lot of jewellery in Westchester" replied Goren.

He said nothing about his doughnut being swallowed before Ross spoke again.

"So why all those crosses mostly out of our jurisdiction?"

"It's robberies of goods over fifty grand legit in the last three months" said Eames. "And seven of them are in the City limits"

"This here?" Goren tapped the map. "Truck heist near La Guardia…gang of four. Here in Brooklyn Heights another jeweller and…what was it Eames?"

She checked quickly. "Uncut stones and the use of threats to the wife to get the victim to open the safe…similar ones made to the Pearce's"

The Captain took another bite of the doughnut.

"We ignored cash and where any witnesses spoke of only one or two men" said Goren knowing when Ross expected _"more"._ "It's looking like we may have a gang with the contacts to move high value stolen goods or maybe even stealing to order. One prepared to use intimidation of family or others and violence"

Ross swallowed again and licked his fingers. "That the ones you got in red?"

"Uhuh" said Eames. "One death…um…the one on Long Island was natural, but that was an old man with a quarter of a million worth of missing bronzes. Heart failure, but they left him tied up like they did the truck driver and another…yeah another…they kneecapped the co-driver to force them to open the internal lock box…that was…"

"This one in New Jersey" said Goren.

"At the risk of saying that all, is that all?" shrugged Ross.

Eames wondered sometimes if there was any pleasing some people as she responded.

"Two of the high jacked drivers and the wife of the Jewish jeweller say one of the gang was black. And specifically sexual threat was used against her and it was with Mrs Pearce"

"I thought she was raped?" Ross frowned.

"She was" said Goren. "But that seemed to be a decision the man who did it made for himself. This _"big man"_ seems to be the leader pulled him off. And she thinks he used a rubber. Which means he's possibly on the DNA database and knows it. Didn't intend to leave semen behind"

"Worth some follow up Captain" suggested Eames. "We've got little else to go on from Mrs Pearce"

Captain Ross nodded as he lifted his butt from the table. "Just be careful you don't fall into cross suggestion. And stick within the City for now"

With that he was gone and the reminder was timely if not really necessary. With traumatised witnesses you could put ideas in their heads if you asked them very specific details from one crime to see if it applied to them. It was human nature to want to help, to want to see someone caught for what they did to him or her. So the moment you said _"could one of the men have had red hair?"_ some people would suddenly feel sure they did _"remember that"_ having not said a word before.

"You might have told him to leave my doughnut alone" muttered Goren.

"I'll get you another" shrugged Eames as they began to gather things together. "And what was it Ross did to make your day earlier?"

Goren unpinned the map. "Oh that! The Commandant of the Academy saw him at some lunch recently. Talked or bullied our Captain into giving three or four occasional talks to classes there"

Eames knew what he was referring to. They were part of the programme and included both officers from specialist sections of NYPD as well as speakers from professions new recruits would find themselves working with frequently when they graduated. Like lawyers, Social Workers, FDNY personnel and medical staff.

"Now it turns out one of the boys has a concert or parent teacher day or something the same time as the first" growled Goren. "So I have to do it"

Eames tried not to smile. Her partner was absolutely fine when he had to speak to a large group of people informally, like to organise a search at a crime scene. But as soon as the setting was _"formal"_ or the subject _"personal"_ he became very nervous, hesitant and self-conscious. When she went on maternity leave it fell to him as her partner to speak or rather stumble a few words and she once saw him do a _Command Briefing._ When Jim Deakins or maybe Ross was on vacation and the brass asked for it to be on their agenda.

Gone were the usual Goren fluency and any control of his body language and Eames was sure he might have thrown up in the rest rooms before and after. Was a little endearing in a way and almost a relief the first time she saw it, to realise he had that kind of _"weakness"_ under it all. The prospect of having to stand in for Ross on this probably terrified him.

"I'll buy you two doughnuts then Bobby" Eames said kindly.

_**To be continued…**_


	11. Chapter 11

**Friday 25****th**** April**

_**Staten Island Ferry, "Senator John J Marchi"**_

Goren sat in the corner of the large cabin space as the boat cleared the dock area and began to pull away with greater speed to make the twenty-five minute crossing. He had been emerging from the Chambers Street subway station when his cell phone rang. This time of day it was the quickest and most practical way of getting to Staten Island.

The rest of the space was almost empty with the flow of commuters in the morning rush more or less one way. To Manhattan. Though he himself was not alone as he watched Mike Logan making his way back from the snack bar. With a couple of cups of coffee and what looked like a bacon roll held in his mouth.

Eames had switched a leave day with her old classmate from the Academy, Matt Desmond, so he could do something domestic. Goren had half expected Faith Dempsey to be at the ferry terminal when he arrived. Logan, as he explained when they went on board, just got _"unlucky"._ Was one of the few around in the Squad Room when the report came in and by chance, slightly knew one of the victims.

The alert from the Island precinct, because yesterday he and Eames had posted a request for notification, when crimes of a particular type occurred. Ones that fit the pattern they were sure they had after re-interviewing the hijacked trucker, the Goldfarbs and others over the last couple of days. And persuading colleagues in New York and New Jersey States to check out some specifics on the examples in their jurisdiction. It proved someone was sharp on Staten Island or perhaps hopeful they could _"hand it over"_ to Major Case.

Just as local precincts sometimes resented HQ based squads, getting as they saw it, disproportionate glory when things went well, there were other times cases looked like a poisoned chalice. Ones they were happy to pass on as quickly as possible. Whether Logan was thrilled to be returning to the place he felt he'd been _"exiled to"_ some years back was another matter. His record since Jim Deakins gave him a chance at Major Case was very good, but memories were long, many not so forgiving or inclined to give you a second chance. And the story of what Mike actually did much exaggerated and embellished in the telling over time.

It had never been in Goren's nature to heed gossip and though very different in personality and style, they had always gotten along fine. Respected each other and, after the time he almost went _"off the deep end"_ himself eighteen months ago, Goren felt he'd got a second chance too. At his whole life.

Logan set down the cups, removed the bacon roll from his mouth and sat down. Pulled from his pocket both the despatch slip and one of his old notebooks he'd actually managed to find in the untidy mess was his desk, before he rushed out.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours Bobby" he said chewing and wiping some grease off his mouth.

Since they shared a locker room Goren doubted there would be too much novelty for either of them in one thing that might mean. Instead, he slid over his folder at the page with the most recent and very basic descriptions of the six or possibly seven men and one woman he and Eames had pegged as the same people and part of this gang. As much as a grim joke, they were calling them the _"Tarantino Gang"._

"See why you called them that" said Mike reading the typed sheet. "All this Mr Green and Mr Pink stuff. How many you got them good for?"

"For certain? Three in our patch, possibly four, one in Westchester assuming they stole the credit card of the missing jeweller and now a hijack in New Jersey" he tapped the page. "Re-interviewed and asked about specifically about smell, one of the security van drivers remembered bad body odour on the smallest guy when he tied him up. Same thing Mr Goldfarb did"

He did not tell Mike how Eames had rolled her eyes when he told her the name for excessive sweatiness was _"hyperhidrosis"_ and that if it was more than just a sweat panic or bad hygiene, the guy might have a thyroid problem. Which was why he asked the Jewish jeweller specifically about the eyes. She had quit referring to him a _"walking medical dictionary"_ some years ago.

"Shit!" muttered Logan studying the brief summary of _'methodology'_. "Threatening to strap a bomb under an armoured truck is a new one on me. Though when you think about it Bobby made like they are these days, once you get it stopped how do you get in or get them to open up?"

"If it was real" shrugged Goren picking up his coffee. "And not sure if it was me I'd take the chance on it being a bluff"

Logan chewed. "Me neither and I guess these other half dozen cases can't be ruled out on the basis of vague descriptions. Men all in black with ski masks has always been the required dress code for these kind of jobs"

"Uhuh. So tell me what you know about the Jarman family"

Logan wiped his fingers and reached for his notebook.

_**Lighthouse Hill, Staten Island**_

Ben Jarman appeared to vaguely recognise Logan when they stepped into the million dollar plus residence set in a lot of ground, like others in the street. He had been captain of the golf club or something when Logan had been sent there to investigate what he called _"rubbers in the rough"._ More accurately, various incidents of minor nuisance and damage to the course turned out to be, as expected, a bunch of kids. You could understand why Mike had loathed his time on Staten if that was typical.

Goren left him to interview Jarman while he went to speak to the second much younger wife, Lesley and their eight-year-old son, Robert. Last night someone claiming to be one of the neighbours knocked on the door around midnight, which got an unsuspecting Ben to open it. Next they knew four men were swarming through, tying them up and using threats against the wife and child to get him to tell them where valuables were.

About twenty thousand dollars worth of jewellery in the small safe, according to Lesley not the best pieces stayed in safe deposit, but more particularly the whereabouts of three modern paintings. Jarman owned a successful gallery in Tribeca, had just opened a second on the Island and had been moving stock from one to the other in his Mercedes. Rather told you why it didn't always pay to penny pinch on a security truck to do such things. If they were worth the fifty grand he claimed.

A neighbour, seeing the drapes still drawn and no answer at the door, summoned the cops when she saw Mrs Jarman tied up in the kitchen. They broke in to discover husband and son still bound in different rooms. Why Jarman, despite the peephole, opened to a stranger was easily explained. The CSU technician at the door pointed it out. The bulb in the security light that should have illuminated the figure on the porch was removed.

"You think maybe Bobby and I could talk alone Mrs Jarman?" Goren said understanding her instinct to protect but sure she was inhibiting the kid. "Sure some of my colleagues would appreciate coffee"

"It's Robert" she told him looking like that would be a burden on her with the daily maid being questioned elsewhere.

Goren waited for her to leave.

"I'm Robert too" he said to the kid and getting up to inspect a remote control car on the floor of the living room.

"Cool car. Ferrari?"

"No" said the child in a scathing tone. "They have a horse on the front. The bull is a Lamborghini"

"So it is. Birthday present?"

The blond boy shook his head. "The other one went in the pool by mistake. Dad got this one last week"

"I need to talk to you about what happened Robert"

"I know. And Bobby is okay. Mom only calls me that with company. And when she's mad with me"

"My Mom was the same"

"Was?" frowned the child. "Does that…is…er …your Mom dead?"

"Yes she is"

The boy looked at him "I guess you are kind of old so she must have been. To die I mean"

"She was sick"

"Can I call you Bobby?" his lip was trembling

"Sure"

"I…I thought those bad men…were…were going to hurt…to kill my Mommy" he began to cry. "And Dad"

"Come here son"

Goren took the boy in his arms for the hug he suspected his angry and distracted parents had not given Bobby since they were untied.

And oddly enough Robert Jarman gave Robert Goren some of the best information they got. Hog-tied on his bed he confirmed the presence of _"a stinky man"_ and had heard something his parents, who were downstairs, had not. One of the men whispered the name _"Slugger"_ to another on the second floor landing.

They might be up to seventy grand to the worse and terrified, but at least none of the Jarman's had been hurt. Before they got a ride back to the ferry, Goren and Logan had also been able to help CSU. One of the technicians had spotted the ropes seemed to be tied very neat and professionally. Goren's time in the Cub Scouts had been brief and not very happy where knots were concerned. Something he always attributed to being a southpaw. It was Logan who quickly identified the proper names for various knots and even confessed he'd got a merit badge for it.

_**JFK Airport**_

She walked through security to the first class waiting area with seventy thousand dollars worth of jewellery. The most distinctive pieces from the Jarman and Moffat hauls. Those that would be too _"hot"_ to get top dollar for them at legitimate dealers in New York. The cops would circulate descriptions and those people checked.

Miami would be different and at least she was free of Marty's attentions. They had transferred, as she planned to that silly girl Crystal. Left them to it the other night after the pair of them put on a nice show for him first.

Which left Clarkson just her business partner and her free to concentrate all her _"personal attention"_ on Frank. And with enough scotch inside him, she doubted he would be in a position or condition to bother her that often.

_**To be continued…**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Saturday 26****th**** April**

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

"Eames we've been looking at this from completely the wrong direction"

"Good morning Bobby. Yes I did enjoy my leave day thank you" she replied setting her coffee cup down.

Eames knew that body language and look so well after all their years together. Moment she walked through the door, saw him on his phone and then put it down to write something in his folder. That was Goren suddenly had a good idea and might have been here since who knew when before the shift started. And not thinking about the time of the morning it was for the rest of the population. Especially on the weekend. A Goren who could not wait to get started and in his enthusiasm, did not so much forget manners, as forgot she wasn't _"tuned in"_ yet like he was.

And then that brief quizzical look about why she was speaking to him like that. Followed by the awkward little wriggle and slightly bashful glance.

"Sorry Alex" he said quietly. "Do anything nice?"

"Laundry. So what direction should we be looking in? And about what?"

Goren waited for his partner to at least sit down. Gave him time to ponder why she made him feel slightly guilty for all she then bothered to say about what she did. Before concluding it was another of the female traits that the smart ones were born with. Caro would have done much the same if it were her sitting opposite him. Like she should have been at the breakfast table that morning. Except he had not stopped for any and she was in Boston.

He handed her the _"Tarantino"_ file with his notes from yesterday, knowing Eames would not waste too much time asking questions about that.

"It was Mike set me thinking" he said "He wondered whether these paintings are as valuable as Ben Jarman claims and then later when I got home, I got the renewal notice for my home contents insurance"

"And?" she was scanning what happened on Staten Island and the checking Goren had done on the contemporary artists and their work.

"So far we and the other cops handled the other cases have tended to work from the basis of who knew about these valuables and what criminal links they had. In the case of the two truck heists, the locals thought it was probably an inside job"

"They usually are" said Eames looking up "Tell me what percentage"

She got that _"please don't rag on me"_ look before Goren went on.

"Look Eames" he gestured. "Thursday night was about the only one that Jarman had ever had anything like that value at his home, the Pearce's only collected their boat the day before it was stolen and Goldfarb only had those diamonds in his place four days when they went"

He drew something on a scrap of paper like an upside down V.

"We started here. From the gang…at the bottom" he turned the paper. "How did they narrow down to focus on their target, here? But look at it the other way. What if there was one person who knew that about each person or company?"

Goren drew more of the V's and then joined them at a point he circled marked X.

"X picks the separate targets…tells the gang and then they strike"

Eames mused, beginning to see it. "Would explain this one from yesterday and…and thinking about _'The Pelican'_ when better to go for it? The Pearce's hardly knew their way round it, it wasn't at it's permanent mooring we know is a fairly secure marina and…and if you plan on taking it out to sea why not grab it in the harbour area?"

"I hadn't got that far on that. It was the Queens' cops suspicion the driver was in on the computer theft made me wonder. Because _Maxload_ rarely carry that kind of value"

"And insurance?" Eames frowned then smiled. "With you Goren. If all these people recently took out extra or temporary insurance because of these items and this mob have an insider…"

Goren nodded. "I just spoke to Jarman. He increased his only last week for occasions he might move stock between the galleries. If I know that, all I had to do was sit outside the gallery in Tribeca and wait for a night he was loading canvasses in the Mercedes and follow him. Jump him at the Staten gallery or home"

"How did you know he had decent stuff with him?"

"Because I went to the gallery myself yesterday. Big signs up whose work they have in their catalogue and about the opening of the Staten Island premises, including the artists to be featured. Reasonable to assume that's what he'd be loading. If not, once I'm in his house with his wife and son hostage, I can force him to open the premises anyway"

"Pass me the second page of the list" she held out her hand.

"Ask if they know if their company had the additional cover unwritten by another insurer. Quite normal to do that to defray risk short term. Especially if the policy holder is transporting goods themselves or keeping them under different conditions"

"Will do"

"And don't forget it's Saturday. The Goldfarbs are on that sheet and won't answer the phone being Shabbat"

"Do that tomorrow when you are all tucked up" Eames replied.

Before remembering Caro's changed plans meant Goren was unlikely to have the cosy Sunday morning in bed he might have planned on. Except she could tell as he began to dial, his head was elsewhere.

_**New Croton Reservoir, Westchester County, NY**_

It was three sixth graders from some environmentally conscious families who found the bodies. Out litter picking and clearing undergrowth in the Nature Reserve, one of them threw up but the other two boys got grisly fascination from it. Were very reluctant to leave the scene as one of the Dads called for the cops and disappointed not to get to see more when they and all the other officials turned up.

By late afternoon they had confirmed the one still tied up was the missing jewellery store owner Bill Moffat and the other one Maxwell James, last known address in The Bronx and with a previous for truck hijacking. After the effects of decomposition in semi waterlogged ground he was even more bloated than his regular two fifty pounds. But clearly showed signs of a lower abdominal wound. And like Moffat had also been shot in the head. Moffat's small Smith and Wesson revolver was in his jacket with two empty chambers.

Those on the scene were not taking bets on what type of matches the slugs would show. Sergeant Courtney was the officer who had been liasing with _Major Case_ in New York and from what this Detective Eames had shared; this gang were ruthless enough to shoot one of their own. Rather than risk leaving him at a hospital with a gunshot wound would get reported or try to find some disbarred medic or amateur to try and stitch him back together.

_**The Excelsior Club And Spa, Miami**_

From the opulently mirrored bathroom she watched Frank roll out of bed, scratch under his scrotum and hesitate a moment by the dresser before picking up a cigarette and lighting it.

She knew it crossed his mind to have a quick look in there and in her purse before reaching for some grey and ancient shorts and pull them on. Whether it was the absence of anywhere to hide anything he could steal or better and second thought hardly mattered. The cash she had realised on the sale of some of the jewellery was locked in the room safe.

Maybe Frank just realised which side his bread was buttered for now and at least he was working soon which meant he would be gone in a few minutes. Gave her time to drive up to Fort Lauderdale or maybe Palm Beach to dispose of more pieces before the shops closed.

Though she really would have to get him a decent haircut and some halfway good clothes before she took him back to New York. For the touching re-union with his brother she had been feeding Frank the idea of. Now she had paid off this Belzoni with interest to make it safe.

And get Frank a manicure before his hands and nails were anywhere near her body again.

_**To be continued…**_


	13. Chapter 13

**Sunday 27****th**** April**

_**Atlanta, Georgia**_

Judge John Milton sat in his study and gave perhaps three minutes to considering the case of Charles "Buck" Masters. There was little doubt he was guilty of killing Douglas Kersey. He said so himself and the reports showed how an otherwise respectable man's whole life seemed to fall apart from that date. When he was in New York to watch the _Braves_ play a three game series against the _Mets._

A birthday treat from his wife. Perhaps it was drink or something the victim said, but for two middle aged men who had been best friends at grade school to get _"into it"_ over something happened on Spring Break more than 20 years before almost defied belief. A chance meeting in Florida and a chance meeting again, almost two years ago. And suddenly, one man was dead and the lives of two wives and five kids fell apart.

But there were no real grounds, despite arguments made in court, to refuse his extradition for allocution and sentencing in New York. He did the crime there, let him do the time there and let the Union pay the bills for it. Milton signed the papers confirming his extradition then checked his watch. He got up from his desk to go to church whistling _"Dixie"._

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

Eames was doing a very careful balancing act on the telephone. She needed the co-operation of Mrs Constance Tovey, Senior Operations Manager of _Hudson Mutual Assurance._ To come down to their offices on Maiden Lane, get out some files or switch on a computer and confirm who and how policies got underwritten for ten clients.

But at the same time, working the weekend herself, Eames was fast losing patience with her _"excuses"._ Perfectly valid reasons really involving a family lunch and things relating to her kids, but there were times even between the sisterhood, you felt your priorities came first.

As she heard about Grandma's birthday Eames was tempted to say she'd come herself with a warrant, except she knew she would be lucky to get that before tomorrow anyway. And sometimes if you pushed people too hard they would turn round and say _"Fine you do that Detective"._ The promise how quick it would be finally worked and she put the phone down with a grin and wink across the room to Matt Desmond.

It had been a similar _"run around"_ job yesterday for her and Goren with folks on golf courses and other places but they got there. And ignored Ross's instruction, when they had exceeded the scope of their brief for just the incidents in the city. It made for more work, but when you are looking for _"pattern"_ the more in the sample, the better the chance of seeing one more clearly. And with him out of the way, a few calls to places like Albany and Poughkeepsie and Trenton and Atlantic City in New Jersey, meant they had gleaned a little more data from the cops and victims there on the cases the _Crimintell_ system had thrown up.

Enough to narrow down to ten possible jobs for this _"Tarantino"_ mob, though two of them were only there because the insurers were _Hudson Mutual_. As she and Goren got sweaty _"phone ears"_ that name kept coming up as either the primary insurer or the one had underwritten additional cover. Mr Goldfarb had completed the set that morning and saved her time because he was one of those who retained such things in his head. And even knew they had covered him a couple of times before when he had an unusual amount or value of stock in his workshop.

Eames was just about to go to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich when her phone rang again.

_**New Bedford, New York**_

Sergeant Courtney of the State Police put down his phone and got up from his desk. Couple of hours overtime and he'd still be home in time for lunch with the wife and kids. Let the city cops sweat a little for him on the Moffat killing. Like he told that Alex Eames, chances of them ever finding for sure just where the jewellery store owner got stopped by the gang were more or less nil. And possibly too long ago now to hope of finding any evidence there might help.

She didn't need to know they were not exactly busting their butt checking every mile of road between there and Pleasantville for any bullet casings. But she, like them, wasn't surprised to know the slug they dug out of Max James' gut was a match to Bill Moffat's pistol or the shots to the head to each came from the same gun. Characteristic firing pin pattern for a _Glock _they seemed to think was the same make of gun used to whack a stiff they had down in the city.

The lady and her buddy, Gordon or Garen or whatever his name was, could chase this insurance idea they figured out and since James' last known and his associates were on their turf too, Courtney could sit back a few days. He enjoyed another boast to his buddies he was right all along that this was city shit come to their turf before he headed home. Maxwell James was no loss and the size of him he was probably just too slow to get out of the armed jeweller's way. But it did occur to the sergeant he was ten pounds heavier himself and should maybe do something about that. Tomorrow. After his wife's Sunday roast and a few beers watching the game tonight.

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

He stopped the treadmill, reached for a fairly rank towel on the side and used it to wipe sweat from the places it was running already and places it soon would. In the kitchen, he pulled a carton of orange juice from the icebox, drank a couple of long swallows and then set it down on the kitchen table.

Various sections of _"The Times"_ lay scattered as he sat down and with another wipe of the towel over his face; Goren considered one he never had reason to bother with before. The property section. As he pulled it over towards him he had a moment of foolish and uncharacteristic superstition.

_Maybe he should not tempt the vagaries of unknown "Fates"? Wait until Thursday?_ Until Caro got this job at _Bellevue,_ though they would have to be in need to help themselves not to want her. Of course he was maybe a bit biased in that view. And it wasn't like they had even discussed the sort of place they wanted to live. She'd miss even that tiny garden but such things could be like gold dust to find in parts of New York. And you needed bags of it to pay for them too.

All opening the pages would do would scare or depress him or convince him they'd both face a long commute to get the size they would need and something like a minute green patch to themselves. It was moments like this Goren realised all the things they should maybe have thought about and discussed.

This was not like him. He never ran his professional life in this ill planned and ill considered way. Not taking into account all the variables and come to that, he had not run his personal one that way. Until now. They say love makes you crazy. It had him and he was enjoying every second of it.

He opened the page on the grounds he'd need to get some valuations for the apartment anyway.

_**Hudson Mutual Assurance, Maiden Lane, Lower Manhattan.**_

Eames closed the last of the files Mrs Tovey had handed her and Matt Desmond. Then reached for the sheet of paper on which they had been writing names. Of the two risk assessors were necessary to sign off on each case of short-term supplementary policies or upgrades on existing ones. There was only one name that applied to each of seven of the cases on the shortlist and none of the other three. _Chester Lonsdale._

"Guess I know where you and Bobby will be tomorrow morning" said Matt softly.

"Uhuh" she nodded. "Come on. Let's hand these back and let Ms Tovey get on her way"

_**Bridle Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut**_

"It's for you Dad" muttered Selena Lonsdale who had been hoping it was one of her friends.

She returned to the living room to play the dumb board game Mom seemed to think was a substitute for not going to the Mall with her friends. And wound her up asking again for a phone of her own, like Gail and Miranda had. When her father came back in the room Mom would have to be an idiot not to know he was lying about it being _"some minor work problem" _got his boss to call on a Sunday.

"_**Scissorfactory", Miami**_

She sat flicking through magazines and with numerous shopping bags all around her. Glancing up and thinking a man with an eighty-dollar haircut and ten-dollar t-shirt looked ridiculous.

But she smiled, blew him a kiss and flashed him her thighs as Frank moved to the manicure station. And he could think twice about any idea of getting between them later after blowing the two hundred she gave him only yesterday.

Though it was useful to discover early on his real problem was gambling. Taught her to be even more careful with her cash and it was a potential tool could be used later.

If only the schmuck knew the real answer to the question he posed earlier. About why _"a lady like her" _was interested in a guy like him at all.

_**To be continued…**_


	14. Chapter 14

**Monday 28****th**** April**

_**I – 95, New York State**_

Eames pulled out into the next lane to get by a slower moving car.

"Alex?" said Goren. "It wasn't your fault"

"You weren't there" she muttered.

He glanced out at the countryside speeding by for a moment.

"No I wasn't. But I don't need to be to know it. Nothing you said to that Mrs Tovey yesterday would have told Lonsdale exactly what we suspected. And you are too…"

"Too old?" Eames interrupted.

"Too experienced and too smart for that"

Goren shifted in his seat a little. "And for all we know there were other issues to do with this man's work she had concerns about or something else going on his life…sheer co-incidence"

"You don't believe that Goren" she said quietly. "Damn big one if it is"

"That I will agree but I'll wait on us getting to Greenwich and finding out more before I dismiss that possibility"

"I guess and I suppose she might have said something spooked him more than necessary, though it doesn't look good. In any sense"

Goren's silence was agreement. The speedometer touched 85 on the SUV as it ate up the miles towards the State line with Connecticut, the lights behind the grille flashing red and blue. They had been at _Hudson Mutual_ awaiting Chester Lonsdale's arrival at work when finally there was a response to the telephone at the house. In the form of a local police officer.

_**27 Bridle Lane, Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut**_

Goren got out of their car at the end of the short street, which was cordoned off and identified himself to the officer on duty to let him through. Eames went in the direction of the small town and its Community Hospital. It was not to spare her still feeling in some way _"responsible"_ for any sights at the house. It was practical common sense.

The only surviving member of the family, Selena, was a twelve-year-old girl and far better that a woman should try to speak to her first. And the maternal grandmother Mrs Britton, whom she had apparently called first when she woke up this morning. Sergeant Croker, in charge at the scene turned out to be a tall, redhead Goren still considered himself able to say _"attractive"_ about. Without it meaning, _"attracted to"._

It was also apparent local resources were stretched pretty thin to cope with three bodies in one event that were not the result of a road traffic accident. The usual people swarming all over and the coroner's truck and its attendants, idle and waiting for a part-time ME to get done with the bodies. In smaller towns like Greenwich, the guy was as likely to have been running his general practice when the call came in or delivering a baby at the hospital.

In the hall of the shingle-fronted dwelling, Goren and Croker stopped to let the attendants through with a body bag and cart to the kid's room. Or more accurately, that of Kelly aged ten.

"All the signs of suffocation Detective Goren" said Croker. "Matches what the other girl seemed to be describing when she came round. Almost certainly drugged first. Maybe to make it easier for him and them. There's an empty bottle of sleeping pills recently filled in the kitchen. Made out to Mrs Lonsdale and that was news to the grandmother that Maxine was prescribed any. They seemed fairly close"

"Think the wife was part of it?" he asked her.

"Hard to say" she replied. "She's in bed in her nightclothes like Kelly. One or two of the neighbours and friends we spoke to say both of them have been strange…different in the last couple of months…but I doubt she cut his wrists. It's Susan by the way"

"Bobby" he said clutching his folder. "Different how?"

"Anxious maybe. The girls not taking the school bus anymore, not seeming to play out with the other kids so much. And he got fairly well blasted at a supper thing at the neighbours, which is out of character. She suddenly stopped going to the gym"

"Sergeant Croker?" a technician called from the room looked to be a small home office.

Inside he had drilled open a small safe. Apart from a couple of items of jewellery and personal papers there was a bundle of used notes.

"Couple of grand" he shrugged.

Goren took it first without thinking and peered hard at the rubber bands, which looked dusty. Licked his finger, rubbed it over and licked it again.

"Cocaine residue" he said.

He looked out the window into the front yard.

"Don't let those trash bags get taken away. And search them for any envelopes this might have come in. Test for coke"

Then he sensed Croker beside him.

"Sorry…um…just an idea"

"Any and all welcome" the redhead shrugged. "First thing like this I had to deal with. So tell me Bobby? Exactly what is your interest in the Lonsdales?"

By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Susan Croker had a fuller picture than she got via relayed messages in the mild confusion with them on the move from Manhattan. They turned into the master suite where the doctor was emerging from the bathroom immediately inside. Chester Lonsdale was slumped in the bloody water. A small knife sat bagged on the side.

"Probably exsanguination" said the doctor. "Water makes a difference to body cooling but same broad timeframe as the daughter and Mrs Lonsdale there. One or two smaller cuts you would call hesitation marks but suicides often fall for that wrong assumption about doing it in the bath"

"That hot or warm water makes it hurt less" said Goren. "All it really does is dilate the blood vessels making them easier to get at. Any pain reduction for cutting flesh or tendons is minimal"

The doctor raised his brows and Susan Croker said, "You must be popular at dinner parties Bobby"

The balding medic nodded to the bed. "Mrs Lonsdale. Classic signs of suffocation like the daughter. Can almost see the shape of the head left in the pillow beside her. Nothing under the nails to suggest she grabbed for his arms and fought. Tox will tell us what's in the blood of course. Only thing unusual on her is the pubic region and soft genitalia"

"Rape?" asked Croker.

"Negative for anything like that. No it's redness and blistering not like any sexually transmitted disease I saw. And assuming they were still intimate, he's visually negative for any lesions or crabs"

"I think she might have been a rape victim" said Goren softly. "But some time ago. Just a guess but Mrs Lonsdale might have been using strong astringents, maybe even bleach…to…to make herself feel clean again"

"You're in the wrong job Detective. That would fit" said the medic writing on his clip board. "I'm signing these off to the morgue now Sue"

"Thanks" she said as Goren went round the room making a cursory glance.

Downstairs in the kitchen he opened the dishwasher and lifted a couple of items, which made Sue Croker frown.

"This had been run a full cycle Susan" he said checking the dial. "Do you do that for four cups and a pan?"

"No. Now I do see. Possible Mom and Dad or Dad made a drink, hot chocolate or something. Laced with pills"

"Fits the fact the elder daughter survived. Possibly went unconscious quite quickly and Dad thought she was dead. Or maybe even subconsciously and drugged she played dead?"

They returned to the study to look at the papers in Lonsdale's work briefcase. Goren noted basic details in his folder Susan Croker read out to him. By the time they left everything pointed to two murders and a suicide and Goren had realised something else. That Sergeant Croker was ever so slightly coming onto him, had commented on him being left handed like her and had probably registered the fact he had no wedding band on. Same as he had noted she did not. Just the mark where one had been.

He called through to 1PP to get someone out to warn or check on a couple of commercial clients whose files were in Lonsdale's briefcase, while she finished up at the scene for now. Then she drove him to the hospital to catch up to Eames.

_**The Cafeteria, Greenwich Community Hospital**_

They sat together in a corner their voices low.

"Everything points to Lonsdale being coerced or under some sudden pressure Goren" Eames said setting down her coffee cup.

"Even the state she and Grandma are in, I believe Selena when she says nothing happened to her or her parents that she remembers. But stopping them using the school bus not even letting them go to the convenience store on the next block anymore? And the Mom, Mrs Britton was starting to worry. How…nervous and moody her daughter had become. She put it down to either early menopause or something or her fearing Chester was having an affair"

"Likely?"

"She didn't seem to think so. But then there's the fact they suddenly had all the door locks changed. No break in she knew of and she says they didn't look any more _'strong or secure'_ as Maxine told her when she gave her a new set of keys"

"Do we have any idea of time?" he said scratching a non-existent itch on his head with the end of his pencil.

"Selena is sure they were stopped from going to the soccer team for the first time…um…Saturday 8th March. It was one of her friend's birthdays so she missed the practice and the trip to _Ronny McD's_ after the girls usually did on those occasions" said Eames as he turned his folder sideways.

Goren flipped it to the table of the thefts they thought tied into Chester Lonsdale's work.

"First robbery Friday 7th" he said with a sigh. "My guess is they got to him and her sometime that week or the previous weekend"

"And we know these sons of bitches have used violence and the threat of rape" spat Eames. "And what the doc said about her sounds right to me. I came across that too in a couple of rape victims. So what about that cash at the house?"

"They are checking for envelopes with signs of cocaine residue"

"So Chester was in on it after all?"

"Possible. Either that or one other possibility. He was sent money to make it look as if he was a willing participant…in case _Hudson Mutual_ got onto him…to implicate him…" Goren chewed his thumbnail.

"Why he didn't throw it out or burn it?" mused Eames.

"A kind of extreme victim syndrome I think. They had Chester so scared, he found himself going along with anything the gang did. Might even have feared if he didn't, they would somehow find out. Punish him for it?"

"And if they raped his wife and with two pre-pubescent daughters, you could see what he was scared of" sighed Eames. "As well as the shame…if we linked him in of telling us what happened. They are bound to have kept up the terror since in some way"

Goren nodded. "As he would see it, killing his wife spared her, spared his kids…maybe even from the gang once he was dead. And for a man especially, the thought he was unable to protect his family…that really bites into the core of a guy's…his masculinity I suppose"

Eames knew that was something another man would _"see"_ sooner than she might have. Her cell rang. Someone in a white coat glared at her and she flashed her badge, before stepping out onto the small terrace to take the call from Matt Desmond.

_**To be continued…**_


	15. Chapter 15

**Wednesday 30****th**** April**

_**Office Of The Captain, Major Case Squad**_

Danny Ross was doing his best to contain his frustration and irritation. That had as much to do with his ex-wife suddenly switching plans in relation to their sons, as anything that Goren and Eames had to say. He sensed she in particular, was almost as bothered as him by the brick wall they seemed to have hit on this series of robberies. Her partner was always harder to read at times.

But Ross had not got the meeting off to the best of starts when they gave him that news. Rather pointedly reminding them of the tally of the seven cases they were now certain were down to the same gang. Not all in New York but if you counted the Lonsdale family, there were now six dead, a woman raped, a security guard crippled and eight severely traumatised people including the only survivor from the Greenwich house. A girl of twelve, whose own father had tried to smother her.

Though Goren had not helped. With one of those moments of pedantry when he corrected the legitimate value of their haul from two point five to two point seven million, so far. Ross was never sure whether those kinds of thing was a Goren automatic and innocent desire for accuracy, or deliberate to wind him up. And part of Ross' frustration, was the Captain was at a loss himself where to go next.

"And nothing has turned up so far from what's been stolen?" he asked.

Eames shook her head. "We've got the usual alerts out and apart from the fact people offered a cheap laptop are unlikely to ring in, we have an idea about that"

"Please tell me it's one which will catch these people"

Goren shifted in his seat was often a sign bad news was about to follow "I doubt it Captain. At first we wondered if these were thefts to order. Now we know the link to Chester Lonsdale, we're less inclined to think that. But what we do wonder and the Robbery Squad are inclined to agree, is whether this crew have the resources and contacts to move items out of state"

"Would explain why nothing has turned up" mused Ross loosening his tie. "And why none of the snitches and sources we've been leaning on all over the city are talking about a lot of jewellery or other items being offered for sale. You're not thinking a mob syndicate?"

Eames flicked through some notes "None of this crew, what little we know, rang bells with our own unit nor the Feds Captain. Though we think they might have access to that kind of network for…um…well…for the retail and marketing. And Bobby has a thought about that"

Ross glanced over "And?"

"It's the dates primarily. Four robberies over three weeks in March, then three in a week this month with almost three between. I'm still checking through all of Lonsdale's files for those dates, but there were three or four examples might have fit the pattern in terms of value and goods. And close to the city"

"See what you mean. I guess even violent robbers need time off" muttered the Captain.

"Could be, but could also be that's when they are, to use Eames' word, _'marketing'_. It was also in that time a credit card from the man in Long Island… Jordan…was used. To buy a one way ticket to Miami and hire a Lamborghini. By the woman. Could be she took some of the jewellery down there either to a contact or to sell"

"Wouldn't show up on the Florida stolen property alert lists Captain" said Eames.

"How did they get away with using that credit card Alex?"

"Kenneth Jordan was an old man with little or no family. It was lawyers trying to deal with the aftermath. Slower to stop a credit card like you or I would if it was stolen and I don't think they had an easy job working out what he did have. Similar in a way to using Moffat's when he was still seen as only a missing person"

Ross shook his head. "And even if you are only making thirty cents on the dollar why spend more of your nine hundred grand if you can get someone else to foot the bill? Almost have to admire their economy"

He paused. "Miami? I hate to ask the obvious, but with the coke residue found on the Lonsdale money you don't think this is all going to finance drug buys? Much as I hate to stereotype that city, we know what a locus that place is in the trade"

"Unlikely" said Goren. "Sergeant Croker says the analysis came back as a street cut. Not pure or import quality. I think our subjects or one of them was just having a celebration snort between sending money to Lonsdale. And unless Chester did a very good job of hiding money, Fairfield cops only came up with another nineteen hundred dollars they can't account for legitimately"

"Aside from the fact he killed his family and then himself and didn't head for a non extradition nation with them or a girlfriend and his loot" said Eames quietly.

Goren knew she still felt an indirect responsibility for what happened. And him listing countless times when possible suspects were expecting a visit from them and did not resort to that had not really helped his partner.

"Why didn't _Hudson Mutual_ pick this up?" asked Ross before partly answering the question himself. "Though I guess a firm that size is handling dozens of claims every day?"

"That" said Eames. "And because they were only dealing with Goldfarb's claim. Most of the claims were made to other companies because _Hudson Mutual_ only underwrote the excess. And in two cases, that of Moffat and Jordan, they haven't even been submitted. Until the jeweller turned up and with no sign of the stock, no claim could be made and again a lawyer isn't moving at the speed people like the Jarman's would be to put in a claim for Jordan's missing bronzes"

"Of course we've alerted all the major companies to what we are sure happened" said Goren. "But either this is over or they have to find a new source to work the same method"

"No chance this Lou LeBeau will lead anywhere?"

He was a known associate of the dead gang member, Maxwell James. Served time for the same truck hi-jack some years back. He fit the broad description by build and being _"quite nice looking"_ that Mrs Pearce gave for the man on the boat flagged _"The Pelican"_ down. But he was alibied for that by his employer _"Custom Cars"_ which had three or four branches over the city.

When Goren and Eames had been tragically side tracked up to Connecticut, Dempsey and Desmond had checked Lou LeBeau out for them. He was driving at the time of the boat theft. A regular Sunday customer for the last few months, who had also confirmed _"Lou"_ drove her to her niece's place and back that day. And Mrs Pearce had not picked him from a photo ID either. He was also logged as driving a Japanese guy to the airport at about the time his old buddy was being shot up in Westchester.

Similarly, the name _"Slugger"_ young Bobby came up with, had turned up several names from the criminal database, but they either did not fit the rest of the description or they were in jail or in one case, neatly alibied. He was working as a cleaner on the Staten Island Ferry service at the time the Jarman's were being robbed. The irony he might have been on the _"Senator"_ with Goren and Logan Friday morning, not lost on either of them.

It wasn't often they left the room almost at a loss where to go next and neither Goren, nor Eames or Danny Ross imagined Miami Dade were busting their butts to see if a _"Mrs Jordan"_ checked in at any of a zillion hotels or motels. And that was assuming the woman used the same name, which they doubted. The gang got _"lucky"_ with using those two credit cards once and the two frustrated detectives were sure they were too smart to risk it thereafter. Have it turned down by the sort of outlet would report it, which not all did, it happened so often.

And as Eames said, with so many transactions on line there wasn't even a clerk to tell you what a failed and probably fraudulent user looked like.

**_Vestry Street, Soho_**

Eames wriggled and muttered in Jack McCoy's bed as a hint she would rather like it if he set aside the papers he was reading and turned off the light.

"Two minutes Al" he said which proved he could take a hint.

She smiled. Probably was harder on him to break the habits of an essentially single guy who had not had someone _"sharing"_ with him on a regular or long-term basis for months before she came along. And while there had been comments from one or two smart-asses when they learned she was dating Jack, it was nothing like as bad as she feared. Surprise more than shock and certainly no hostility, apart from one person. A lot of cops might find McCoy a little _"liberal"_ for their taste but none ever thought him other than damn good at his job.

Ironic in a way because Eames knew while they were not best buddies, Bobby had always been more socially friendly than her with the now DA. McCoy got round a few of the Manhattan cop bars in the past, including _Roark's._ In outlook McCoy and Goren had a lot in common and until she started on this Lieutenant business, Goren was the one took more active interest in _"the law"_ in a general sense. More likely to go to some talk or seminar where McCoy would also pitch up, than her.

And Goren's comment on the situation when he was still in Boston was the one Eames might have expected from Bobby on a private matter. None.

She heard the rustle of papers, Jack mutter as they and probably his spectacles he needed for reading, slid to the floor and then felt him snuggling into her back as the light went off.

"Did you book summer leave yet Al?" he asked with a stifled yawn.

"No not yet" she wriggled against him.

"How about we do something together?"

"You mean some cabin in the middle in the middle of no-where with an outhouse and several pounds of live bait?"

She knew one of McCoy's ideas of fun and a mixture of work and disinclination, meant she'd turned down the chance a few weekends back.

"No. But I don't want to sit by a pool somewhere either. A least not one with a smell of chlorine and a slick on the surface from sun oil"

Eames laughed softly. "Not my idea of fun either. Not for more than a day"

"Didn't think so" he yawned again. "How would you feel about Paris?"

"That I can't afford it"

"I'm not talking _The Ritz_ Al. And I can"

"I don't know Jack…"

She felt and heard his sigh of frustration as he turned away from her and onto his back.

"I made you mad?" Eames said softly. "Again"

"No. Not at all" he muttered. "It's just now I have to get up"

"Why?"

"To go make up your bill Al. For every piece of toast you ate in the last three months and the extra utilities for every shower you took and…oh I mustn't forget the two jars of crunchy peanut butter I got in just for you and that steak which…"

"Shut up" she said turning on her back too. "You made your point. And I still say smooth peanut butter is disgusting"

"Doubt they serve either in Montmartre. It will be fresh croissants with really smelly cheese and the waft of _Gitanes _on the air"

"Forget those. Is the smelly cheese compulsory?"

"Doubt it. Maybe, along with _Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite_, the French now have crunchy peanut butter?"

"Ugh! Not on croissants" she snuggled up to him. "We'll negotiate"

"Shit" murmured McCoy "Why does everything have to be a plea bargain with you?"

He kissed her softly a couple of times in the darkness.

"How soon?"

"You changed your tune Detective"

"Don't want you changing your mind"

"I was thinking maybe September"

"That long!"

"Diary is already filling and you know I want to go see my daughter when the baby comes in July"

"Of course"

It was hard sometimes to realise he was soon to become a grandfather for the first time, but when you stopped to think, they were all getting older. Wouldn't be beyond the bounds of decency for Goren to be in that position. Or her, if she had been careless in her teens and raised an irresponsible son or daughter, to be the same.

"That a yes then?"

"In principle"

His arms sliding round her felt good.

"You here tomorrow night?" he asked.

"No I must go back to my place and don't forget I'll be late. Bobby and I have to take delivery of Charles Masters at Penn Station tomorrow evening"

"Oh yeah" McCoy mused recalling the case had been over his desk. "Atlanta?"

"Mmm. I'll call you when I get back and…"she trailed off as one of Jack's hands began to explore.

"What are you doing?"

"Something I won't get chance to do tomorrow and you can't phone in"

"You were yawning just now" she sighed feeling herself responding already and making it easier for him.

"I was faking it" McCoy replied.

Something as they quit talking Eames never had to do with him. Or felt she needed to with Jack.

_**To be continued…**_


	16. Chapter 16

**Thursday 1****st**** May**

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

"Nghu!"

Goren woke with one of those inhuman sounds the male of the species specialises in and grabbing for the alarm clock. Most mornings his body clock beat the digital kind and its hideous electronic squawking.

"Unkh"

It sounded meaningless, but was a mixture of groan and sigh conveying relief, as rude consciousness became another kind and he wriggled across the bed a little for consolation. Except it, or rather she was not there. Just the scent of her and a cooling section of sheet.

He should not be surprised. Caroline was more nervous about this interview for the job at _Bellevue,_ than she let on. Probably had not slept too well and his words of re-assurance and actions had been only temporary distraction last night. Telling her it would be fine and that he loved her before making love with her.

Goren turned on his back. _Strange thing that._ How making out was usually a certain sedative to a guy, whereas with women it often seemed to act like a stimulant. As likely to leave them wide eyed and energised, when all you wanted to do was snore through your satisfaction. He gave up trying to work that one out and rolled out of bed.

When he got to the kitchen Caro was in the middle of constructing a huge breakfast. She cooked when she was mad or pre-occupied and as he steeled himself for more hitting his stomach than was usual this time of day, he wasn't about to demure. Risk wrath or upsetting her some other way right now.

And when Goren spoke to her he got the re-assurance, he needed. That she loved him too.

_**Bellevue Hospital And Medical Center, First Avenue**_

The hospital opened in 1736 was the oldest public facility of its kind in the USA and had expanded many times since to now include the Medical School of NYU. Eames sat in the SUV parked in a _"Strictly No Waiting"_ zone. Watching her partner pace a little outside the building.

They were supposed to be on their way to look at a skeleton had turned up in Blackwell Park on Roosevelt Island. Sent because it was in the grounds of City property and probably because it was uncovered in the process of constructing a garden in memory of a former City Councillor. Logan might joke maybe it was Jimmy Hoffa or the Grand Duchess Anastasia turned up at last, but whoever it was they were not going anywhere fast.

The diversion was not much out of their way and finishing off all they could realistically do on this _"Tarantino Gang"_ for the time being, her partner had been _"fidgety" _since lunchtime. She knew this job was about a lot more than that for him and Caroline Reese and whilst Eames wanted it to work out, she could not rid herself of another feeling.

That things were changing. Not just to Summer but to both of them and their whole lives. She was starting study for a Lieutenant's grade would inevitably split her and Bobby's partnership apart at some point in the future. Finally, some might say after they were lucky to survive the first week. Before settling down to years of success, growing understanding and mutual tolerance of each other's quirks. And a closeness and love for each other of the sibling kind. Taking it in turns to play _"big brother"_ or _"older sister"_ to each other.

A professional and personal closeness Eames would not deny was severely threatened for a time. When his Mom was dying and in the ghastly aftermath, when Goren seemed determined to test her tolerance and understanding to its limit by things he was doing. And then briefly last fall, when she _"blamed"_ him in all sorts of ways for what went on in Arizona.

Let herself think all manner of things about him she had maybe suppressed or ignored for a long time, before realising they were really _"her issues and demons" _not his. That Goren had addressed a lot of those and for the first time, he was the one happy, content and stable in his life. While she was the one left dangling on a thin thread over things she had ignored or pushed aside for a long time.

And her becoming a Lieutenant, if it ever happened, would be longer coming than another factor about to change. As she watched Caroline Reese leave the building looking very serious and glum. Before her face broke into a smile and she almost jumped into Goren's arms. Bobby really wasn't going to be _"alone"_ any more. Eames was so very glad and happy for him, yet at the same time a little sad. Things were bound to be different.

She stepped out of the SUV to offer her congratulations.

_**The Concourse, Penn Station, Pennsylvania Plaza**_

The modern and subterranean structure had none of the architectural glory of _Grand Central_, but at six hundred thousand passengers a day it had to cope with four times the number. Perhaps needed some of that modern, efficiency of design, but none the less was still lacking in _"soul"_ Goren concluded.

He, Eames and two uniforms stood watching the boards for the arrival of the service from Atlanta carrying Charles "Buck" Masters and two police escorts. As passengers arrived and departed for points as far away on the East Coast as Florida and right up into Canada, it was rather like taking delivery of a parcel. An unlikely but self-confessed killer, his exposure after almost two years was mainly down to the cops in Georgia.

But for the two of them a case finally closed and for Goren, the last chapter in a very bad time in his life. Masters had killed Douglas Kersey almost a month to the day after Mom's funeral. When Goren knew he was slipping down a slope into self-neglect, drink and eventually quite a lot of drugs both, legal and illegal. Never a good way to cope with the sheer exhaustion, physical and emotional he felt by then as well as the rest of what happened. Including the doubt cast on his whole sense of _"who"_ he was. Possibly the product of an adulterous affair and with a subsequent serial killer as his natural father, not the feckless man he grew up calling _"Dad". _It was months before he found the courage to straighten that out, once he managed to straighten out a lot of other things first.

He had always believed, despite Eames' assurances, he must have missed something with that case would have solved it sooner. He had not and in one sense he had some sympathy with the middle aged man coming towards them between two guys had _"cop"_ written all over them. A jacket disguising the cuffs would be holding his hands as he reached into his folder for the paperwork. The two Georgia guys were more or less turning round and getting back on another train.

But before anyone could sign anything or him be escorted to the patrol car, a voice slightly echoed through the area.

"_Robbie! Hey Robbie!"_ it called.

There were few people ever called him that as Goren turned in the direction of the hallway led to the _Silver Star_ and _Silver Meteor_ services that ran to Florida.

To see his brother. Tanned, tidy and for him, remarkably well dressed. With a baggage cart full of matching and expensive luggage. He hesitated for a long moment, a mixture of surprised but also with a hollow feeling in his stomach. Frank was rarely good news. Hadn't been since he was about sixteen and began to go the way of their old man he so closely resembled.

Goren felt Eames slide the folder out of his grip and say firmly but softly at his shoulder _"I'll deal with this Bobby. See you outside"_

If he took any steps in Frank's direction, they were few and hesitant as the cart almost slid to a halt beside him. Taking Frank's hand was automatic as his older brother babbled at him.

Words and phrases about chance meeting, how glad he was to see him and more surprising nothing to hint, as yet, he needed money or somewhere to stay. There was a slight waft of sour whiskey on his breath. That was no surprise but he wasn't drunk. If anything seemed more on a _"high"_ could be down to something else.

On the cart, as he stuttered a word or two to the effect he was fine and yes he had lost quite a bit of weight in the last year, Goren noticed the vanity case. The sort of thing for make up and the like some women were unable to be without and that was perhaps inevitable. Frank had hitched his fortune to or more likely, deceived some woman who would probably live to regret it.

In his peripheral vision, Goren saw Eames and the two uniforms taking Masters in the direction of the drop off zone where the SUV and a Squad car waited to take him back to 1PP. Where they would _"book him in"._ To their holding cells for the night, before transfer to Riker's to await his day in court for allocution and sentencing.

He was just about to use that excuse to leave when he became aware of Frank turning round, looking for this _"Jenny"_ he spoke of and whom he _"must meet"._ Then Goren saw a woman emerge from the hallway behind a large family group of Hispanics must have been meeting someone from the same or another train.

She was zipping up the large purse, as if she had stopped off at the rest rooms. The artificial lighting made the blonde hair shine. Like she had a halo around her head. Except what Goren saw was not an angel. It was the devil incarnate. For a fraction he felt his own head spin and expected to wake up suddenly and find he'd been dreaming. So much so, he almost missed the fractional look of surprise on her face at seeing him, before it settled into a smile.

The wonderful dream his life was now on track to turn into was suddenly a whirling nightmare all over again.

Goren heard himself half sob and half whisper, _"Nicole Wallace"_

_**To be continued…**_


	17. Chapter 17

**Thursday 1****st**** May**

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

There were few people left around by then. Just the small nightshift gathered in a corner of the room. Working some of the cases they generally worked by day and probably hoping not to get called out or to have to summon a colleague from their bed. Because something had taken an unexpected and usually, bad turn in the small hours.

As he came through the doors from seeing Masters to his cell, Goren looked to Eames to have aged ten years from the almost boyish and joyful guy who had swung Caro Reese around earlier. He looked drawn and haunted and she knew that had nothing to do with overseeing the installation of an overnight male prisoner. One it was more appropriate for him to deal with, as Masters would have had to undress, be seen by a doctor and who was being treated, on advice of the Georgia detectives, as a potential suicide.

Eames had never known Goren to exaggerate but when he stumbled back to the SUV to comment on the astonishing similarity between this _"Jenny Archer"_ his brother had turned up with and Nicole Wallace, she did wonder if he got it wrong. But leaving the station complex they had to pass close by the lines for cabs and she saw the woman for herself. Almost ran the SUV into the back of the patrol car she was so taken aback by it.

On the trip back to 1PP Eames got only scant details from him and in some sort of jumble, as Goren tried to both relay to her what had been said and order his own thoughts. How _"Jenny"_ and Frank had looked at him like he had gone crazy when he had more or less accused her of being someone who meant nothing to either of them. How he was sure she lied about something in their brief interaction and how his brother, perhaps understandably, began to turn aggressive when he realised what Robbie was saying.

That his new love or maybe meal ticket, was really some crazy multiple killer. And Robbie must be having some kind of paranoid delusion. But then Frank Goren, drifting in and out of Bobby's life for so many years, would have no clue about Nicole; even supposing her partner would ever share anything work related with him. And then there were Goren's own thoughts and impressions, Eames got in a muddled confusion of words from him.

He said it was Nicole but it wasn't. How _"Jenny"_ was younger, subtly different and even Eames had glanced at him with a _"you must be kidding look"_ when he speculated maybe she had plastic surgery. That was the moment she firmly reminded Goren they had DNA evidence Nicole Wallace was dead. Incontrovertible. With her system fairly full of tranquillizers and the supposition when it did not work as quickly as she expected, she'd hung herself in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Either ending her own life the way Goren always suspected she might or perhaps fearing her almost eighteen month assumption of the identity of _"Trish Sewell",_ was about to be uncovered.

At least Goren had not gone off into some wild speculation how Nicole could have faked her own death again and seemed to accept maybe it was one of those examples of a _"doppelganger"._ Fairly stunned herself by the passing look she got, Eames was grateful on that occasion for one of those mini lectures from Goren.

As he explained the original concept of a doppelganger came from Europe in the Middle Ages. The idea you could have a ghostly, non–corporeal and mostly malevolent _"double"._ How even Lincoln once thought he saw his _"doppelganger"_ and it was only a more recent idea that one was simply a _"physical double"_. Someone, somewhere in the world you had no genetic links to, who looked just like you.

Whether Goren was convinced as they headed through Manhattan that was all it was, Eames doubted. But she listened to the various things he had registered in those confusing few moments at the station. How _"Jenny"_ spoke in an American, maybe West Coast accent that supported what she said about her origins. Not the _"bizarre hybrid"_ Nicole had or affected each time they saw her. One Goren always said was far _"too English"_ for the time _"Elizabeth Hitchens"_ was supposedly in Oxford and the tones of that, neither local to that region or the sort you would might expect an Australian academic to pick up.

As her partner sat at his desk and seemed to hesitate between the phone and his computer terminal, Eames spoke.

"Go home Bobby"

"I need to…"

"No you don't" she said firmly. "There's nothing you need to do in relation to Masters I can't and in about five minutes. I know as well as you what time it is in Cedar Rapids, Portland and Melbourne, Australia"

He glanced at her with a rueful expression that she knew exactly what he was going to do. Start running checks on _"Jenny Archer"_ based on all he gathered so far. To try and scratch either an intellectual itch or more likely, put a very troubled mind at some kind of rest.

"Go home" she said again. "Caroline is expecting you. You have something to celebrate Bobby and please…if you can…try to put this out of your mind tonight"

"Okay" he said quietly and somewhat reluctantly.

As he left, Eames cursed the concept of the doppelganger but as soon as she had done the routine work, she picked up the telephone and dialled the number for Kate Fox in Cedar Rapids.

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

He'd not eaten much of the Chinese take out they decided to have as a little celebration and he'd steered clear, despite the temptation, of much of the bottle of wine. He let Caro's infectious enthusiasm, humour and a little of her good looks to sweep him away for a time. As she described her interview, what work she would be doing, how she had resigned her job in Boston and was hopeful they could be together in as little as six weeks. Though selling the house might take a little longer.

"Rob?"

"Yeah sorry" he said trying to focus on her.

Not that piece of paper under his wallet in the bedroom where Frank had scrawled his new address and telephone number. His and Jenny Archer's. If that's who she really was and he'd not told Caro that her _"good news"_ calls already made, he'd switched on the machine to pick up right away. Just in case Frank got it in his head to phone and ruin an occasion he was struggling not to himself.

"I said, do you think we could discuss the area we want to live and the kind of place we want to get? Or am I being very silly and childish? To think we might even start to look at the weekend before I have to leave"

"No Caro. We've got a good idea what this will go for now. And I did…I did do a rough estimate on what we can borrow between us…the other day. I wrote it down somewhere though whether that will…I guess we should decide what first…"

All those other things he thought of and meant to say seemed to go out of his head or seemed unable to come out of his mouth. How maybe they should try to think long term, not extend too much to leave options open and included in that, was one issue they had never really discussed.

"I got a better idea" she said softly.

"Huh?" he had to focus again.

"Rob? How about you tell me what happened since I saw you this afternoon. What's really on your mind right now?"

"Nothing Caro" he smiled.

"Don't start lying to me now darling" she said. "You never did before and you are really rather bad at it. And shoving food round your plate for the last half hour is just one of the clues. That and your temptation to pick up that bottle and down the lot"

So much for his abilities to _"sell"_ her anything. As he looked across the table at her, Goren suddenly had a horrible thought.

"I swear it's not to do with us Caro" he blurted. "I mean I didn't change my mind…have second thoughts once it became a step closer to reality"

"Good" she held out one of her hands for him to take and topped their glasses up with the other.

_**To be continued…**_


	18. Chapter 18

**Thursday 1****st**** May**

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

Eames never imagined she would be checking again in her _Rolodex_ for the details of the police in Melbourne, Australia. It was mainly Goren who had spoken with an Inspector Ian Durbridge before, where it was mid afternoon tomorrow. But before she picked up her phone to call him, she called Jack first. He would have expected to hear by now as they spoke most evenings. Did not tell him about what happened at the station and resisted the temptation to change her mind.

To go to his place later, though time she was done here Eames would rather do that than go home. For one thing Soho was nearer than Brooklyn and a cuddle and re-assurance from him would be welcome. Maybe Jack was right in his occasional complaints about the way she sometimes and deliberately _"backed off"_ them getting closer? And she didn't have time right then to wonder why as her e-mail pinged and something came in from a Lieutenant Stockton in Portland, Oregon. Eames had not totally told the truth when she got put through to him.

_**East 91**__**st**__** Street, Manhattan**_

Jenny Archer stood by the outer doors to the luxury block. Frank was still too busy unpacking his new clothes or messing like a kid at Christmas with the various gadgets in the place. So long as the moron didn't break any while she was waiting to take delivery of the pizza and sides from one of his favourite places. His palette was about as sophisticated as his reaction to the home cinema system and the less she thought about his idea of great sex, the better.

Thank goodness for narrow bunks on the train though running into Bobby at the station had almost thrown her for a moment. Not the way she planned it but it was almost better on reflection. He couldn't have looked sicker and she was sure his interest piqued, even if for the wrong reasons, he would now be even easier to draw into her game. She had not got it all planned out as yet, but as she spoke on the disposable cell phone to Marty, one thing she did need to do.

It became more of a negotiation as she made it clear a job for Frank was one condition of what Marty wanted in exchange. She needed that moron out from under her feet, not tied to the strings of her apron she didn't own and had no intention of providing him with everything he wanted or maybe expected.

Even that half brain Clarkson could see advantages in the end, as she gave him what he wanted from her and she took delivery of Frank's idea of good food. Drop a couple of pills in his scotch later and he'd be out for the count.

Jenny smiled inside at the thought of a nice family reunion at the weekend for three.

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

As he cleared the table, he glanced from time to time at Caro curled up reading in the black leather chair, which was his favoured place to do that. What she was flipping through was something even Eames did not know he had and which he had brought from the small safe at the rear of his closet. Installed for keeping his gun secure it also contained some essential documents, his passport and a couple of hundred dollars in cash it was Goren's habit to keep against sudden emergencies.

The file comprised copies of various papers about Nicole Wallace he had kept down the years. Including some of his notes, the originals of which were on the NYPD official files and the most _"personal"_ items of all. The page or two of his own feelings, that he had written down once or twice and which only he had ever seen. Something of an exercise in exorcising his demons and dealing with his reaction to certain events. How it felt to realise Nicole _"investigated him"_ to uncover things like Mom's illness and then to be _"set up"_ so an innocent man killed himself, apparently the result of his actions.

The obsessive, genius cop who drove a man to his own death or at least that was how it did look for a time. How he made the grave mistake of _"bargaining"_ with the woman, unaware just how much she knew about him by then. Something Goren knew you should never do and was either a conceit on his part or a gross miscalculation of the lengths Nicole would go to. Whichever it was, it had affected him more than he felt he could show at work and dealt with it another way. In private and on a legal pad.

Letting Caro read that file was a mix of things he supposed. Perhaps feeling she needed to see things he'd only ever hinted at before in relation to Nicole Wallace. To see he wasn't _"exaggerating",_ not that she accused him of it when he described what happened at Penn Station. To help her understand why, until he was sure otherwise, he was so uneasy about this Jenny Archer. Though he took her point, that even if they did turn out to be distantly related, it did not follow their character was the same.

It had not been avoidance to not tell Caro all about it before. It had not been relevant. The process of falling in love with someone and they with you, was never dependent on knowing every last detail of their lives, though Caro knew how the _"Wallace Cases"_ had been one of the things had led him to the edge of destroying his life and career just before they met. Just as he never asked her how many men she ever slept with or details of her most challenging cases to treat, she had never asked him for his tally or for his _"Top Ten Villains I Never Caught"._

And it was sheer chance that he'd not destroyed the file anyway. It was with a bundle of things he left in the safe Father John had no use for, while he was travelling during his extended leave. That file, along with his parent's death certificates and some financial details, never went with him to Boston. If it had, he would almost certainly have destroyed it there when he heard Nicole was dead.

Caro looked up as he set some coffee on the side table and sat himself on the sofa. She waited a moment and Goren suspected when she spoke it would be as Dr Reece, respected clinical psychologist not the woman he loved. It was a _"voice"_ he rarely heard from her, though with certain interests in common naturally they had _"debated"_ a few points from time to time.

"I think you might be right about childhood sexual abuse Rob" she said.

"And not just because her mother died when she was quite young and was raised essentially by a lone father"

"Plenty of guys do that and don't abuse their own daughters. I'm saying it for the same reasons I guess you did. Her marked and extreme sociopathy. It can be a reaction…a self-defence mechanism in many abuse cases though I never saw one quite so extreme. And a way of behaving she learned from seeing how Daddy interacted with the world. His manipulations of her and probably other people around them. Was he ever convicted? With other kids I mean?"

Goren shook his head. "Doesn't mean he didn't do it of course but so far as I know, even when he died and Nicole became something of a notorious case in Victoria, no-one ever came forward. Is it common? That he would have only ever abused her?"

"It happens Rob. If she was the…the manifestation or re-incarnation for him of the dead wife, for example. Nicole _'became her mother'_ in some way though that is more common when girls are older than she was. And of course there are cases of men and women who only abuse within the family. Grandfathers who abuse their own daughters and later their granddaughters. Mothers who only ever molest their own sons"

"Is that related to something I read? How there is some kind of instinctive sexual attraction between related people because they so closely resemble us? Occasional cases of separated siblings, who suddenly discover they are dating their own adopted brother or sister"

"That and the other tool you know sex can be. The power one. Another way of exerting it within the family context" she sipped her coffee. "And one harder to spot than physical abuse people like teachers are more conscious of and liable to report these days"

"I'm not sure you telling me I was probably right on that helps"

"Wasn't meant to Rob. Do you need me to say it's also okay that under it all you still felt sorry for Nicole? Couldn't excuse her crimes but wanted to see her helped as much as hanged?"

"Perhaps" he smiled a little. "It's not a feeling it often pays you to express in my job"

Goren picked up his own coffee cup. "You think we could really change the subject now? We have a home to find Caro"

"This place would be fine"

"Now you are the one not telling the truth. There is no way even if we redecorated and furnished we could both really work at the same time in this place. Never mind me clear enough closet space for you"

"You can talk" she muttered. "You have clothes horse tendencies yourself you know"

"Guilty as charged ma'am" Goren shrugged.

_**To be continued…**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Friday 2****nd**** May**

_**Exchange Place, Downtown Manhattan**_

Jed _"Weasel"_ Dipnall had followed the guy all the way from his fancy apartment building in the Upper West Side. The Dorilton Building, though Dipnall had no idea when it was first built in 1902 an architectural review had said of it _"the sight makes strong men swear and weak women shrink affrighted"_. All he cared about was he went into the office building he was expected to.

Squeezing into the elevator at the last moment himself, Dipnall sensed the woman closest to him sniff and wrinkle her nose. He could not help it. If he was scared he started to run with sweat. And it was the prospect of what would happen if he said _"no"_ to Marty when he'd called at one freaking am that scared Jed the most.

_**Male Locker Room, Eleventh Floor, 1PP**_

Goren sat in one of the stalls reading the slim file of papers that Eames had handed him half an hour ago. Something she had locked in her desk overnight and information his partner had misused if not actually _"abused"_ the system, to draw together.

He felt faintly ridiculous locked in a lavatory but this time of day there were a lot of guys still around and strictly speaking he was supposed to be in the lab. Where he would go once he was done and his partner…his friend…knew very well what would have happened at some point today. He would have been making the same calls, doing the same checks she had last evening. Only at a much more inconvenient time and with a greater chance of someone realising what he was doing.

What he read did not make him feel any better, if anything one of his fears was confirmed. But at least it was confirmed. He knew whom he was dealing with, if not what. Goren stood up and flushed the john at least able to put some of his head to concentrating on what he should be doing today.

_**West 71**__**st**__** Street**_

Harcourt Denton tipped his chauffeur style cap and apologised to the lady at the entrance to the building. Before walking back to the Lincoln and then slowly cruising past her and the kid. He left the car around the corner, removed the jacket, clip on tie and hat. Switched jackets and head gear and then followed her on foot at a distance.

Three blocks to a day care facility, where she left the little boy of about four and then hailed a cab. It didn't much matter where she was going. What did was that with her six months gone at least, she wasn't likely to be a problem. Harcourt knew he was a lot of things, including a guy with bills to meet for his sister's treatment. To get her off crack cocaine and stop her selling her ass on the street to pay for it. But he did not like the rough stuff with women and kids.

Any more than _"Weasel"_ did and he was a man whose own wife Marty had allegedly climbed on as part payment for a debt. He and _"Slugger"_ were the animals along with Max James who enjoyed watching and occasionally egging them on. Though that had not stopped Clarkson capping him as casual as you like when the jeweller got the jump on that barrel of lard.

A mixture of need, obligation and fear tied them all into this now. And none of the other guys seemed to know where Marty picked up that bitch he was banging for a while. But Denton suspected she was the source of his inside information. Not just an occasional additional member of the gang. He kept his head down as he walked back to the Lincoln. Black men still tended to get noticed in this part of town unless they were emptying trash or delivering mail.

_**CSU Laboratories**_

Goren had not missed as much as he feared since Professor Travis was late himself. He really was the epitome of a slightly absent minded academic with his long grey hair, as he donned a lab coat and began to peer into the box contained the skeleton found on Roosevelt Island.

He was the man they usually asked to come take a look at remains both the ME on scene and technicians like Jimmy Antonelli were sure were not very contemporary. He was a forensic anthropologist. One who could not find his spectacles. Eames, with a smile, told him they were on his head when he began to feel and look round for them.

The discolouration of the bones, the depth of the _"burial"_ and one or two other items found nearby had them saying on scene perhaps fifty or sixty years old. It was possible the man, since it was male, had been naked at the time of his demise, but the absence of any clothing was sometimes a clue to pre 1940 or so. Before widespread wearing of man made fibres, which rotted more slowly than cotton or wool and in some cases, never totally vanished without trace.

The ME was also something of a minor expert on dentition and the numbers of missing teeth and the minimal work done to the ones that were there, said to him _"poor"_ and _"old style mercury fillings"_. Something Antonelli was confirming along with his rough calculations for height and build based on the tables constructed from various dimensions like the length of the femur.

The younger man also glowed when Travis confirmed his suspicion the skeleton was almost certainly that of an African American and he would push the date of what might have been a crude interment back even further. Early part of the twentieth century or maybe before.

"Based on?" asked Eames.

"Oh nothing to do with the bones my dear" said Travis picking things from another box. "History and these things"

He showed her the now cleaned up penny was heavier than the current ones and what looked like a small hollow bone found among those of the skeleton.

"Stem of a clay pipe" he pronounced. "The smoking accessory back then of the poor and those possibly detained by the State"

"You think this man was a prisoner when Blackwell Jail was open?" said Goren. "Or maybe a patient at one of the asylums or hospitals?"

If you were a New Yorker you knew that for a large part of its history Roosevelt Island had been _Blackwell Island_ after the first gentleman farmer who claimed it. And when it passed into the hands of the city, it became the New York equivalent of _Alcatraz._ For years only accessible by boat, it was a place they built the jail had been the forerunner of Riker's, as well as notorious warehouses for the insane and isolation hospitals for diseases like smallpox. Few went to the island by choice and a great many never left alive.

Those who did included Mae West, who was there for a while under _"obscenity"_ charges and Billie Holliday, who before she got famous, did a stint for prostitution. Even Dutch Shultz did a term for burglary before he developed a taste for more notorious crime.

"Very probably" said Travis. "There is nothing I can see from the bones to give us a cause of death would indicate violence. Jimmy?"

"Nothing we found Prof. But how come he was in the Park, not one of the cemeteries?"

"Back when, I doubt guards always bothered toting back the body of a man died out on a work detail. Always possible too he was a sick man. Somehow got out of one of the asylums or the less secure welfare establishments and just died. No one would have bothered reporting a missing black man or set up much of a search. Assumed he'd drowned like most escapees did trying to swim the river"

Antonelli looked again at the map. "This close to the shore and depending on time of year I suppose even on a small island the body wouldn't have attracted attention. Spring water levels could have covered him with mud in no time. Before the river flow was so controlled"

"Mud and other material" said Goren. "The rivers were near enough used as a sewer for parts of the city for many years"

"Question is" said Eames "Do we need to pursue this?"

"_No"_ said the two experts in unison.

"We'll do you a full report Alex" said Antonelli.

"Fine" she muttered with a nod to her partner it was time for them to leave.

They left the two of them still poking around the bones and probably wanting to satisfy their _"professional"_ curiosity with more tests. Nothing to do with the demands of justice and twenty first century law.

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

When they got back to their desks there was message for Eames in the distinctive handwriting of Danny Ross. From an Officer Mitchell in Seattle. Across the desks Goren could see Ross had added the words _"Tarantino Case I assume?"_ They both knew it was not and just a look from his female partner was enough to tell Goren this was down to her to deal with.

_**To be continued…**_


	20. Chapter 20

**Saturday 3rd May**

_**"The Café On The Pavement", Laight St, Soho**_

As they ate lunch together Jack McCoy listened without saying anything, but with growing astonishment about what Alex was telling him. Not just what happened at Penn Station the other night, but what she had discovered since about Jennifer Archer. And he was not about to criticise the way she had gone about it for her partner.

Jennifer Ann Archer it seemed was related to Nicole Wallace. Her first cousin, some seven years younger and the uncanny likeness between them, was easily explained. Her mother and Nicole's had been twin sisters and her father, Bruce Callaghan, had died in the same RTA that killed her aunt. All four of the parents had been in the car at the time, though she grew up in Wangaratta, Victoria some 150 miles from Castlemaine, where they knew Nicole had been raised. By her veterinarian father who probably abused her.

At least until Jenny was ten when her mother re-married. One Thomas Archer an American and they returned to live with him in various parts of first Washington State and later Oregon. He was a few years older and when he died four years ago was the recently retired CEO of a major forestry and lumber company. Jenny had graduated in Business Administration in Seattle and seemed to have a completely clean record working various finance and personnel jobs until last spring. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and she moved back in to live with and eventually to nurse her. Until her death in early December.

Apart from a brief marriage soon after college, she seemed to have no other _"history"_ and her seeming comfortable financial position to afford the rent of an apartment on the Upper East Side was simple. Or as Alex said, it was when you saw the size of the estate her parents left, including a house the cop in Portland told her sold for eight hundred grand.

So her claim to Goren when they first met to not know anything about _"any Nicole"_ was possibly true. They may have seen little of each other as kids, it was known Nicole _"ran away"_ when she was sixteen and by the age of eighteen was involved in killings in Thailand and about to do a ten year jail term. Understandable why Mrs Archer might have said little to her own young daughter even before they left Australia.

"Still an amazing co-incidence" Jack said between buttering toast.

"More or less what Bobby said" replied Alex grimly. "And you can understand why he finds it harder to just accept it could be. Though how the hell this Jenny could have sought out Frank is impossible to say. Goren didn't know himself where his brother was until a few weeks back"

"Could be she is just a hometown girl suddenly come into money getting chance to travel or re-locate" suggested McCoy. "Since there seems to be little in the way of family on the west coast"

"Could be. Which is why I think Bobby wonders if there is anything…something going on, someone being conned…it's as much Frank latching onto her as the other way round"

"From what little I know the guy is something of a leech"

Eames topped up their coffee from the cafetiere "I think in the past Bobby got him out of all manner of trouble. Gambling debts. Minor con tricks. You know he's never been one to pour out his troubles"

"I expect Frank is one of those who drift round on the edge of criminality and with a lot of shady types. Gamblers often do, even if they are not committing serious offences themselves"

Alex nodded "What worries me I guess is that this could all blow up in some way and throw Goren off the track he has managed to get back on in the last year"

"What I know of Caro she won't let that happen. Anything I can do Al?"

She smiled at him "I'll let you know Mr District Attorney"

"Just let you pick the new bedroom drapes?"

"Uhuh" she laughed as he took her hand in his for a moment.

**Sunday 4th May**

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

Caroline Reese lay watching him sleep. Just glad he had stayed that way and well aware what had helped induce it. A combination of the amount he lost since Thursday night and them making love. One of those gentle and tender occasions, not the sometimes raunchy and other times _"fun"_ sessions they had. When they would _"joke around"_ while fooling around and often end up laughing a lot.

What they both needed after that very tense and at times, slightly odd evening spent with Frank and this Jenny Archer. First, for dinner at a place near the UN building and later, at that small but expensive apartment she was leasing. Tense, because Caro knew the chequered history between Rob and his brother, she had met briefly once and because of the whole situation.

She had been aware that for much of the time Rob had gone into that _"observation mode"_ when he said little but you knew he was taking in everything. Verbal and non verbal and almost filing it away. And Jenny was not such a fool as to not know that and work out once or twice things he said were to try and catch her out. And it was a fine line he had to walk. To do that and at the same time not alienate Frank, who might be besotted or bewitched or working some angle of his own.

But for whatever reason she did it, Jenny Archer totally defused any ammunition Rob had about her at the outset. Admitting she lied to him at the station the other night. Told them over the meal the life story coincided exactly with what Alex had found out about her. And that she only really knew the full extent of what Nicole had got up to in her life when her own mother was dying. That Mrs Archer had wanted to protect Jenny and the whole family from an association was to say the least embarrassing. Her only memories of her cousin were vague ones from childhood, of them playing together a few times.

Jenny even brought out a few pictures of them as kids when they got back to the apartment and everything she said was perfectly possible and plausible. Rob had told her very little about his contact with her late cousin and though Frank had not known about Nicole until Thursday night, he didn't seem concerned by it. As he said rather pointedly, every family had skeletons in the closet they didn't talk about early in a relationship. She had seen Rob flinch at that because Frank had guessed right. About how it took time before his brother told her much about the Goren family situation and his own childhood.

There was only one thing that still _"bothered"_ Caro if that was the right word and which she had not said to Rob afterwards. It was not the distinct impression she got Jenny would far rather she was not there or her occasional flirtatiousness with him. It was the fact that right through the evening she did everything she could to keep Rob and Frank from being alone together. As if she either feared he knew something she had not told Frank or his brother would say something she did not want Rob to know. It was also a classic way of manipulating people. By keeping them _"isolated"_ not physically but socially and psychologically. And with the equal _"incentive"_ of her money, it was Frank she was doing that to.

If ever there was situation could get you paranoid, they seemed to be in one. Next to her, Rob shifted position onto his back and stretched unconsciously. She leaned over to wake him up with a series of soft kisses and touches. Far better to send a guy to sleep with the same sort of smile on his lips seemed to form as he woke up. His arms going round her for a cuddle and the agreement they should go and see a couple of possible places to live.

_**Columbus Circle Entrance, Central Park**_

The light rain, which began to fall, worked to their advantage as it was sending many scurrying away early and there was a confused mill of people by the gate. Checking they had everything, including their kids, before making for the subway or hailing cabs. It meant no one really noticed Thomas Lacey (III) and his son Thomas, the fourth and aged four, being slightly hustled and jostled away by three clowns.

Various reconnoitres by Clarkson and his men had shown the security and concierge system at _The Dorilton Building_ made it close to impossible to use a _"home invasion"_ tactic. Far easier in the suburbs, though Weasel was only there under duress and Denton waiting in the nearby Lincoln, under the same threat. When Marty points a _Glock _at you and tells you to go along with a hastily revised plan or take a bullet, you tend to comply.

But kidnapping a child was really taking things too far and it was Weasel Dipnall who was expected to take the boy, by then starting to cry, to his place in New Jersey for a few days. By the time the Lincoln and the SUV following it reached Exchange Place in the Downtown area, the clowns apart from Clarkson, had changed out of their disguises to the regular black and ski masks.

The only _"exchange"_ taking place? Bundling the kid into the SUV as his father was almost shoved onto the deserted street not far from his office block with a warning. If he wanted the rug rat back in one piece in a few days he'd do as he was told. No one paid much heed to what he was saying about Tommy's mother as they drove away. Little did they know as the short convoy made off that was to prove to be the beginning of the end.

For many people.

_**To be continued…**_


	21. Chapter 21

**Monday 5****th**** May**

_**Wexler and Son, Queen's Boulevard, Forest Hills, Queens.**_

"…and the fifth guy was black" said Bernie Wexler taking a sip of black coffee laced with scotch.

"Could see just round his eyes under the mask before they blindfolded me"

Goren sat beside him his folder open and just waiting. The owner of the Lexus dealership might have been tied up for several hours before his son found him, but he was unhurt and as good a witness as they had so far.

"Six feet" he went on. "Maybe two hundred pounds and…and yeah the guy did all the talking called him Mr White"

Goren added that to the typed table of details as something they did not have before.

"My impression was he and the one called Blue might have been the youngest in the group" Wexler shrugged and patted his own stomach. "Not carrying the waistline of the two big guys. And I think he was their driver"

"How come?" asked Goren

"After they jumped me at the door and shoved me in here? They made me show them where keys were and how to open the gate to the compound. I heard it slide open and an engine sound. Must have parked up their own vehicle out of sight while they stole mine. And this White, the black guy, was no-where to be seen until then. Arrived as the leader was starting to toss them keys"

Bernie took another sip of coffee. "Guess I should be glad the wife is up in New Hampshire visiting our daughter and my son and his family are safe?"

"Could be" said Goren quietly knowing far more detail than the local cops had told him what had been done to other victims.

Wexler was _"lucky"_ to be jumped as he locked up his new business due to open later in the week after working late. His concerned son had found him quite early that morning. Early enough that Eames had picked him up from home on their way out to Queens.

"Not insured in any way by _Hudson Mutual_ are you Mr Wexler?"

The man shrugged "You'll have to speak to my accountant Detective Goren. Leon Bloom. He deals with all that. Danny will give you the details. All those years places like the Bronx…nothing…finally we get to open a franchise someplace like Forest Hills and what happens? This!"

Goren left him a few minutes later to go see his partner was checking the inventory outside with Danny Wexler and where CSU were swarming all over. Eames came over with a clipboard.

"They only took the best models" she muttered. "Three LS, two SC and three GX SUV's. List value…call it four twenty grand"

"He's sticking to there being five for sure. One stayed here watching Wexler so it might have taken them three trips to move the cars"

"Three?"

"Had to get back here didn't they?" mused Goren. "Either in one of the stolen Lexus models, which would be risky or their own car. One of them had to drive the other three back"

He checked his notes. "Or…Mr Wexler is sure they were gone in an hour start to finish…so if they took the last four with them when they left…"

"See where you are going Goren" Eames nodded. "Except who is to say they didn't have a big transport vehicle waiting a few blocks away?"

"True" he sighed scrubbing that theory as to how far away they might have taken the cars initially and thinking they might make a search in that radius.

"I've asked them to start checking any tapes from traffic cameras" said his partner on a more positive note. "Might have picked up a convoy of Lexus models somewhere late last might. And Jill from CSU found some black paint scrapings on one of the gateposts. None of the stolen vehicles was black and Danny says neither he nor his Dad drive black cars themselves. Helps that all this compound is new"

"Jill?" Goren asked with a glance over to one of their vehicles with the tail open.

"Uhuh" said Eames wondering why his sudden interest in one of the few women at 1PP she knew he'd dated briefly some time ago.

She left Goren to go speak to her for whatever reason. While she went to use the bathroom before they headed for the accountant's to track down insurance details. If they were right about how this gang were getting information, the chances were high someone like Chester Lonsdale and perhaps his family, were living in some kind of terror. And give them what might be the best chance of catching these men.

_**Lacey & Porter (Insurance Brokers) Exchange Place, Manhattan**_

The building might be a new one but the firm was one of the most long established in the city and they had the interior fitted like an old one. The reception, where Eames and Goren waited to speak to Thomas Lacey the Second, was wood panelled and furnished with items would not look out of place in a gentlemen's club or a home at the turn of the century, with it's dark furniture and well stuffed seating.

As he paced, not really studying the prints of historic racehorses, Goren had not told Eames of his conversation with Jill Quinell. One of those women in his life for a while who had wanted more from him than he could give her. Not the time she expected with both the job and his commitment to his sick mother. Nor the emotional investment. It had not exactly ended badly, but it was a while before they were _"comfortable"_ with each other again as colleagues. When Jill stopped _"blaming"_ him for not feeling for her, what she did for him.

They had both moved on. To the extent she was willing to do him a covert favour. Run DNA on some hair samples. Ones he had carefully removed from a brush in the bathroom at Frank and Jenny's apartment Saturday night. Something was an impulse at the time; one did not really have rational explanation and an act he had certainly not told either Caro or Alex about. It wasn't that Goren really believed Jenny was actually Nicole. It was that he did not know what to think.

That worried him as much as anything and at least Caroline had not accused him of complete irrationality or paranoia when he asked her to give serious thought to something just before she returned to Boston on Sunday. Of getting and keeping a gun. Whether she would or not, Goren had no way of knowing and she only got briefly angry with him when he foolishly suggested something else. That he or someone in NYPD could do something to hurry the procedure in Massachusetts for her.

"_The Commonwealth"_ had some of the tightest laws in the USA, though Caro should have no trouble getting a permit. Nor was it like she did not know how to use one. George Reese, a Navy man, ensured all four of his kids knew how to handle a gun. Same as he made sure they could all change out a tyre, ride a cycle, hit a baseball and wire a plug correctly. He was that sort of father and luckily not the sort to give a man a hard time. One who was sleeping with his eldest daughter and who was about to turn her life upside down to be with him.

But as Goren turned to go speak with Thomas Lacey at the invitation of his secretary, he knew Caro was worried about the way he was reacting to this whole business with Jenny and Frank. And _"just because"_ she was related to a sociopath serial killer was good enough reason for him to think that way. For now.

_**To be continued…**_


	22. Chapter 22

**Tuesday 6****th**** May**

_**Office of the District Attorney**_

Teresa Randle glanced through the papers and slid them back across the table to them. Both Goren and Eames knew from her expression things did not look good.

"We believed the woman at _Seaboard Insurance_" said Eames. "We didn't believe Thomas Lacey Junior or his wife Imogen"

"You don't even know for sure this gang used intimidation to get information from the Lonsdale man"

"Kind of hard to be certain when he and two other members of his family are dead" murmured Goren. "But you have to say it's a strange co-incidence when the cars got stolen from Wexler. Two days after the policy to include stock of up to a million came into operation"

"I agree" nodded the attorney. "But if Lacey tells you he is not being threatened since it was him negotiated and fixed the cover for Wexler's accountant and you have no evidence otherwise, you can forget it Bobby. No judge will give you permission to trawl through the company files for possible future targets. And will want more than _"we don't believe him"_ as explanation for you not doing the same at _Seaboard Insurance_, who after all, are the policy providers"

"And the wife?" he asked.

"A young woman six months pregnant!" Randle snorted. "Who you must have scared half to death to explain the sort of threats you meant. And who will have worked out you were only talking to her because you did not buy what her husband said"

"It wasn't like that" muttered Eames.

"I'm just painting what their lawyers might Alex" the other woman said in a somewhat more conciliatory tone. "And you don't know it isn't something totally different they are uncomfortable about and don't want you to know. Can't you have them tailed? See if they are doing something unusual?"

"We thought of that" said Goren. "But if we are right, who is to say this gang are not doing the same? We know there are six of them. Maybe more. If our tail is spotted and they or some family member is under some threat…well I don't like to think about it"

"Me neither" admitted Randle. "But you can't just expect a firm like _Lacey and Porter_ to start handing over sensitive commercial papers on what is really nothing more than a theory"

"Especially one run by a guy dines frequently with the Mayor" growled Eames.

"I guess you would know that better than me these days Alex" shrugged Randle.

"And what is exactly does that mean?" she bridled instantly.

Goren knew exactly what it probably meant and was not about to see a spat develop over his partner's private life and the fact she was dating Randle's boss. He could see it from both sides. Teresa might imagine Eames would be complaining about her reaction to their request over the dinner table later. It was one of those things complicated, for real or in the imagination, relationships within the work context. And since he returned from Boston he had once or twice seen Alex or others suddenly uncomfortable. About something that was said without thinking in her presence, about Jack professionally or personally and the people in his office.

"It means that it's time we were leaving Eames" he said as he stood up and gathered the papers into his folder.

_**Custom Cars, West 57**__**th**__** St, Manhattan**_

Frank Goren shuffled the cards and dealt for the next hand of five-card stud. He had been reluctant yesterday to come to the job that Jenny fixed for him via a firm she got to know because they drove her to places like the airport. He had rather been hoping to sit around with his feet up for a while after four months of, for him anyway, hard work down in Florida.

But the offices and yard near the piers mostly disused these days, seemed like a picnic compared to those slave drivers in Miami. The boss or at least the guy in charge, Joe Haslam seemed okay and he was getting an easier ride than their regular drivers, though he did get bored clearing a cupboard and shredding old papers yesterday morning.

And was a breath away from complaining this was not what he came here for when he got asked to sweep the yard later. But yesterday afternoon things picked up when he did a run down to Newark to pick up people at the airport. After winning fifty bucks in a lunchtime poker game.

He was a similar amount up today as well and he had not asked twice about the Lexus GX and the silver SC that had appeared in one of the outbuildings since yesterday. Joe had a way of looking when you pissed him off or said something out of turn. Frankie decided he would take Jenny out tonight on his _"winnings"_. _Maybe the latest Bruce Willis movie and a pizza?_

She had not been at all keen on his idea of giving Robbie a call and the two of them going for a game of pool and a beer over at _O'Shea's _in the old neighbourhood in Brooklyn. Jenny was someone else Frank did not want to upset right now and was not sure how hard to press her on certain things.

Like how often or suddenly how rarely, she was willing to open her legs for him. They often were like that soon as you were under the same roof, so pity his kid brother when he got that fancy dame to shack up with him. Great tits and legs going to waste if that were the case and Frank could not understand once things were explained, why Jenny did not seem to like Caroline very much.

Maybe commenting on her rack was a bad idea and excuse for Jenny to turn him down. True she wasn't so big in that department and the work yesterday must have tuckered him out more than he realised to fall asleep as soon as he did last night.

_**Custom Cars, 63**__**rd**__** Drive, Rego Park, Queens**_

The object of Frank's mild sexual frustration sat in the second floor office from where Marty Clarkson ran his three premises. With him and Lou LeBeau, who was there because he was the most _"inoffensive looking"_ of the group. Lou had been with her the afternoon they flagged down _"The Pelican"_ and unlike Frank and Bobby, had a brother who was almost identical to look at.

It was why, when the cops came snooping about his whereabouts when they found Max James dead, Lou's alibi held up. The old broad he drove now and then could not tell the difference between him and Phil, especially not in a driver's _"uniform"_ and his kid brother had responded to both names for years.

The two of them could pass as a respectable white _"married couple"_ with no trouble and that could be useful for the next job they had planned. Though it might need an evening approach to the targets, so Marty tossed her a small container from his private pharmacy. Some more pills to keep Frank _"under"_ if needs be though she declined his offer to give her _"a treat"_ before she left.

You had to hand it to the bitch, Marty concluded. How she snared that cop's brother and Marty could see how useful that could be in future. Especially when the ones who came snooping about Lou were his buddies from the same team. Though he was not that dumb he had not worked out she had some unknown agenda of her own. So long as it did not put this nice little earner at risk. When they had gone, Marty got Crystal to quit filing her nails and bend over the desk to oblige him instead.

_**CSU Labs, 1PP  
**_

"It was a Lincoln" said Jill handing Eames the official sheet and returning to some clothes she was examining.

"Specifically an oh-two or later _Town Car_. They changed the paint composition that year. And as we suspected, the only tread marks in Wexler's lot were consistent with the types of vehicles stolen"

"Not likely to be hanging around were they?" Eames muttered.

They had got lucky with tapes picking up the stolen vehicles on Queen's Boulevard but after that they must have turned off onto side streets. Possibly to avoid such things.

"Wonder how many post two-oh-two black Lincolns there are in New York?" said Goren.

Really only hypothetically and knowing that must have turned before the camera or the other way out of Wexler's lot to not get picked up. And the fake licences the camera caught, all checked out to other vehicles almost picked at random.

"I guess we may be about to find out Goren" said his partner.

Eames had quit her mild rant on the way over from the DA's office. Which had been equally about Randle's unwillingness to go to a judge for a warrant and that slightly bitchy comment as she saw it. About her and McCoy and the sort of company because of him, she was very occasionally keeping these days.

Because he was saying nothing and halfway back to 1PP, she changed tack completely as women found it so easy to do. With the suggestion maybe the four of them should get together for dinner sometime? Jack was only saying at the weekend he'd not seen Goren for more than a minute or two in passing since he got back.

They had never what you might call _"double dated"_ but it seemed to Goren things were different. His partner appeared to be as many nights with McCoy as she was alone and very soon Caro would be with him all the time. It was an occasion preferable to another meal with Jenny and Frank and with them on a property search, it seemed certain it would be Caro making the journey to New York more often than he was heading to Boston. Just would seem a long six weeks.

As they left the lab, Eames wondered briefly what it was Jill Quinell might need to call Goren about tomorrow. All the cases they now had on their desks were ones just they were assigned and so far as she knew there were no lab tests outstanding. Unless it was one of those _"shot in the dark"_ things he sometimes thought of?

_**To be continued…**_


	23. Chapter 23

**Wednesday 7****th**** May**

_**Custom Cars, West 57**__**th**__** Street**_

As he drove the dark blue Lexus GX out of the yard heading for an address just across the river in New Jersey, Frank Goren felt his stomach do a somersault. Because just about to turn in and waving him out ahead, was Frank Belzoni in that white '73 classic _Charger _he was so fixed on. Even though he did not owe him money any more, Belzoni scared him.

Not just because Frank had seen one or two examples of his handiwork when people crossed him, but because it was said he did occasional _"muscle work"_ for the Masucci's. Not an old style _"made man"_ but one connected to the Mob. And the big s.o.b he had with him looked as mean and more _"Italian"._

What business they had there, Frank had no idea and did not want to know. He had earned a few points with Joe that morning getting the paint and doing a good job on that scrape on the Lincoln they brought in from one of the other sites. Perhaps he ought to tell Jenny about the slightly _"shady"_ connections and goings on at the place she sent him to work?

Except that would mean telling her more of the truth about his past than Frank had thought it a good idea to. She could be a bit starchy and not very street wise in some things, so better not. And since Joe had said he could finish for the day when this Lexus was delivered, he'd maybe be a bit more insistent about sex tonight. No reason for her to know he was now two hundred down on poker after a sudden change of luck.

As he drove across the river, Frank had no idea they had been letting him win on Joe's instruction from Marty. Or that the bill made out in his name for the auto paint and the rest of the spray can were being handed to Clarkson. To ensure they could be _"found"_ by the cops when it suited him and Jenny.

_**Office Of The Chief Of Detectives, 1PP**_

Neither Robert Goren nor his Captain Danny Ross expected it to be good news when they were peremptorily summoned upstairs. Just Eames' bad luck or good luck that day was one she finished her shift early. To attend one of the occasional classes at the Police Academy arranged for those undertaking study for promotion.

He just had time to grab his folder from his own desk having been in the interview suite. Watching Matt Desmond and Faith Dempsey question a suspect. It was fairly routine to have someone as an _"observer"_ and it was a task Goren got handed quite often with his reputation as an interrogator.

But when they went in to see Dick Nichols, he was not alone and though Goren did not know the woman, he did know the man. Thomas Lacey. The father who probably did have connections if Eames was not joking about him dining with the Mayor. Nichols had seemed to get over his suspicion of him based on reputation when he took over as Chief, though Goren guessed the more recent toleration could now be at severe risk. And if he and Ross were going to get a bawling out, it was going to come later.

If that was on The Chief's mind, Lacey quickly diffused that as they sat down and got the _"back story"._ The woman was Patricia Dowling, Lacey's former daughter-in-law. Mother of four year old Thomas and returned only in the last couple of days from her honeymoon. And Lacey said right away he knew his son well enough to know he was not telling the truth on Monday, though his suspicion was Tom had been up to something irregular in the company.

Pat had come to him, before going to the cops or her lawyers on the matter of their son. Unsure whether her _"ex"_ was playing some sort of game or about to defy the court on the custody agreement by not giving him back when she arrived to collect him on Sunday. Told some story about Tommy being sick, possibly infectious and with her ten weeks pregnant, used words like _"rubella"_ she had never been vaccinated against. But she suspected Tom and Imogen as time went on and she had checked with his doctor, who had not seen Tommy either at surgery or _The Dorilton Building_ apartment.

As soon as he heard, Lacey senior brought her right round here. And Goren, though he tried to put it gently, was unable to assure them that this gang were not holding her son against his father's co-operation with them.

Fifteen minutes later Goren was in the Major Case locker room, changing into his uniform and quickly briefing Logan. Mike was heading in the direction of the brokerage firm to go through all the paperwork Lacey was now willing to hand over. For the first time they had chance to get ahead of this ruthless gang.

_**Hotel Des Artistes, West 67**__**th**__** Street**_

With Thomas Lacey able to give them details of where his son was expected to be and his vehicle, it was relatively easy for a patrol car to spot his _Range Rover_ and pull him over as if for a routine traffic stop. And then move him and his British SUV to a less public location for the more detailed sort of check they sometimes did. If he was being followed they might just convince any watchers it was genuine.

The look on his face when Goren got out of the second patrol car with a clipboard told him Lacey knew the game was up. It came as no surprise _"these bastards"_ had his little boy but at the same time Goren expected the fight he got from him as they sat inside it and the SUV got _"checked over"._ On which other targets he might have lined up for the gang. Tom Lacey's fear the same one he and Ross had allowed for in their rapid discussion in the Chief's office. That if they lay in wait for the gang and caught them in the act of robbery, a child of four would pay the price with his life when the gang failed to return or make contact.

You could never be sure of getting one to _"confess"_ and give up information and every hour that took, was time the boy could be tied up and suffering somewhere. Never mind the possibility of Tommy never being found.

"How can I believe you?" the younger man almost moaned.

"You can speak to your father yourself" Goren replied offering him his own phone. "He is with the Chief of Detectives or Captain Ross as they organise some very experienced cops to just hold off and observe. Tail these men until we find your son. But I need you to tell us what you told them"

"I'm still not sure. The note left in our mailbox this morning said one more by the end of the week and we'll get Tommy back"

"That's what they say Mr Lacey. And what if he doesn't come back then? If it's just one more after that? And then another?"

"I don't know" he sat with his head in his hands. "What if these cops you don't think will be spotted see them? Hurting someone? You going to tell me they'll just stand back and watch while that happens? That two lives or more won't be thought a better deal to save than one little kid?"

"If you tell us we should have chance to warn people. So they will co-operate. Be at less risk of harm" Goren replied knowing there was an unspoken _"but"_ in there.

"But?" snapped Lacey "But you can't say for sure. Or that Imogen is safe"

"We'll station a covert guard in your home and on her"

He paused for a moment. "But one thing I will tell you Mr Lacey. The last person we think they did this to, who was too scared to call us, ended up dead. Killing himself, his wife we think was raped, his daughter and came close to murdering the second"

"That helps" snorted the other man.

"Wasn't meant to" Goren snapped. "But I'm running out of patience and time here Mr Lacey. And whatever happens I can assure you at some point the DA's office when they consider this case will give it every careful thought. Including at what point you ceased to be victim, failed to co-operate with the police and maybe even conspired yourself in what follows from here on"

"Bastard!" spat Lacey.

"So I get told almost daily sir. So which is it?"

Five minutes later he was calling Mike Logan at the Downtown company office and Lacey was about to drive away. To a home where a covert team would soon be installing a tap on his phone line as well as arranging for a female SWAT officer to come in posing as a maid.

_**CSU Labs, 1PP**_

With everything else he had to do which included preparing for what might be a long night, Goren took a few minutes before she left for the day, to respond to the message from Jill.

She took him to a corner of the lab she worked in for a discussion about the DNA she had extracted and processed and compared for him. A private matter between old lovers could still be friends.

"This woman" she said softly handing him a chart she knew he could _"read"_ better than most cops.

"She's not just a close relative of Nicole Wallace, Bobby. She's her sister. Too many matches to say different. It's like running your DNA against your brothers"

His intake of breath was almost painful before he gave her the only other piece of information he had. Other than the one profile to check against first. Goren had not wanted Jill to have to run Jenny's DNA against the whole system, with the attention that would have drawn to what she was doing.

"This woman's mother was apparently Nicole's aunt. But their mothers were twins "

She shrugged. "Makes even more sense now, but no doubt about it. There's too close a match on the paternal side"

Jill looked at him a long moment "Does this woman know her uncle was her father?"

"I've no idea" he replied.

"Bobby?" she said kindly. "I don't know what this is about but I know…what happened with Wallace…but please, please don't do anything that could screw up your future"

"Guess you heard about that too?"

The technician smiled at him. "Yeah. And I still care about you enough, if that's not a scary word for me to say to you…to want you to be happy"

"Thanks Jill. For everything. I owe you"

"No you don't. Now go away Goren. You have things to do and my boss is starting to wonder"

He did as he was told and during an evening and part of the night spent in the Squad Room before Ross returned to take over, Goren made a call. To a florist to make a delivery to Jill's home address which had not changed since he was sleeping there once a week.

As he made his own way home close to midnight, he'd worry about Eames' wrath the next day. No point in messing up her evening. He gathered she was going for a late dinner with Jack when she was done at the Academy. Which served as a reminder of something else he should start applying his mind to.

That talk he had to give and Goren was not sure which of many things scared him the most right now.

_**To be continued…**_


	24. Chapter 24

**Wednesday 7****th**** May**

_**East 91**__**st**__** Street**_

Jenny could hardly stop herself smiling as she got into bed next to a snoring Frank. The plan had worked like a dream. To distract the night doorman at the apartment block while five of them slipped in behind him. And those people just moved into 10c were so grateful the neighbours they had never met from two floors below were reporting what looked like damage to their Volvo in the parking garage.

Whether they would be as grateful once Marty and the rest were done who could say. But she had slipped away; her red wig was safely locked away where Frank would not see it and Lou would have removed his disguise before slipping on his ski mask and going in to help the others.

But what gave her the greatest pleasure was what with one phone call and a little luck, her drugged companion had found out earlier. On the promise of sex, Frank had called Bobby at home and not getting him, his office. He wasn't at his desk but some woman told him he was kind of busy right then to come to the phone on account of these important robberies he was dealing with.

As Frank got on with it, with enough enthusiasm from her to keep him happy, Jenny was really enjoying herself. Planning her next moves since that slob's on top of her were predictable and certain to be over soon enough. Bobby seemed to be running the investigation. And she would get to see the look on his face when they implicated his own brother. It made her domestic plot for the weekend pale by comparison, though Jenny still wanted to know if he'd be alone or have that sly bitch Caroline with him. Bad enough she was a shrink without being a shrink with nicer tits than her.

She hated them. Almost as much as she hated Nicole. The only downside as she'd given Frank his post coital and suitably drugged slugs of scotch, was she was not alive to see her triumph. Little Jenny finally getting to do what Nicole was both driven to do and yet afraid to do. Destroy that big cop she both loathed and was very attracted to. The one she obsessed about until the day she died.

**Thursday 8****th**** May**

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

The telephone by the bed woke him with a start at five thirty sending some papers sent by realtors sliding to the floor. He listened grimly as Roy Kalinowski at 1PP outlined the events of an even grimmer night. How the gang had not struck at an antique store in Tribeca, nor at a businessman who had just increased his insurance cover to add some secure trucks to his courier service. But at a private apartment in the Upper East Side.

One that had been on the _"long list"_ that Logan and Wheeler had identified at Lacey and Porter as possible targets, but not one of the remaining two Thomas Lacey the Third said he had given details of to the gang. Goren rubbed his temples a moment before getting out of bed and himself ready to go see the financial and emotional carnage left behind again.

He understood why Lacey had lied, how he might justify it, since it seemed his son had turned up an hour ago. On the doorstep of a Social Services group home in Hoboken. But this was down to him in large part and perhaps he'd like to explain that to the Young family and their daughter. Sixteen and sodomised by one of the gang before her younger brother managed to escape his bonds and raise the alarm.

Lacey could wait on a re-union with his son as Goren picked up the phone again. Beside it he now had a note of Jack McCoy's home number. To call his partner and break all sorts of bad news.

_**Adams Street Group Home, Hoboken, New Jersey**_

When you considered all he had been through, including being left on a doorstep in the middle of the night, little Tommy Lacey was in very good shape. Not bruised or injured in any way, according to the doctor the social workers summoned and he was dressed in cheap but new, clean clothing. Whoever had been holding him had taken care of him and he had mentioned one or two meals he had been given.

Perhaps not the sort of thing his very relieved Mom, Mrs Dowling would have fed him and Eames could see as she and a social worker gently questioned him, how she grimaced each time Tommy used the words, _"Auntie"_ and _"Uncle"_ of his captors. And despite her instinct to want to take him home she understood why it was necessary.

By asking Tommy questions they might be able to identify who took him, where they kept him and thus catch the people who did this. And as the Social Worker explained it was also chance for Tommy to deal with the trauma early on and while a four year olds memory was still fresh. Eames watched him play with some toy cars.

"Did you go out to play in the yard when you stayed with Auntie and Uncle?"

"No" he replied.

Eames thought a moment "I used to like swings. At the park. Did you go to play in the park?"

"I could see it"

"From your bedroom window?"

"Yes. No clowns"

"Do you think it was the park where you and Daddy met the clowns?"

"No" he said as if she must be stupid. "But it had a road in it"

"A road with cars on it?"

"Uhuh"

Eames thought a moment about what he said about a _"short ride"_ with _"auntie"_ in the car after she woke him up to get dressed. That sounded like he had not been kept far away and if he could see a park it could be one of those in Hoboken. They had already established it was an apartment block and on a floor _"taller than Daddies house"_ but probably not as high as Mommy's home in a fashionable Manhattan high rise.

"What else could you see from the windows Tommy? Could you see trains?"

"No. Green house"

"A tall house or a little house?"

"Little. Like Grandpa Toms Mommy"

Pat Dowling explained that meant three or four stories if you counted the basement. They were getting somewhere.

"Did you see the people lived in the green house?"

"Uhuh. They had a dog. It was white and…" he giggled. "It did poo in the yard. I'm hungry Mommy"

_**Park Avenue/East 80**__**th**__** Street**_

Goren stood in the kitchen of the apartment where the Young family had only taken up residence a few days ago. There were still boxes to be unpacked in most rooms and James and Brenda Young must be deeply regretting the decision to re-locate from the rural Suffolk County, Long Island. To spare him the length of commute but mainly on account of their two kids. Holly now traumatised and injured at Mount Sinai Hospital with Mrs Young and Paul, blaming himself for his sister getting raped. Both of them highly talented musicians and the move made primarily so they could attend special classes more often at _The Julliard School of Music._

SVU detectives were waiting to talk with her and Goren had been _"pleased"_ if you could use such a word, that the responding officers had called them. It meant when he arrived he could concentrate on dealing with James Young and the robbery aspects of the crime. While his old partner from _Narco,_ Finn Tutuola, tried to speak with the boy.

Quite how he made that transition especially from the sort of gritty undercover work they did, Goren was not sure. Except Finn had and successfully so and since Paul's interests seemed to focus on the violin and rap perhaps he found some way to get through to him. In the kitchen the two of them greeted each other informally for the first time with a hug and the sort of handshake they had developed as a _"code"_ when they worked together undercover.

"Bad business Bobby" said Tutuola shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.

"Tell me" he replied leaning back against island unit where his folder was open.

"Kid's blaming himself. After they shoved the two of them into his room and tied her up, the one covering them with a gun they called Blue, left a smaller guy to tie him up. Guess they assumed a skinny thirteen year old would be no trouble"

"He say anything about him being smelly?" asked Goren who from the father's jumbled statement thought he knew roughly who was where and did what.

"I can go back and ask. Paul had managed to get hold of a pocketknife he keeps on his desk. Stabbed the man in the gut as he went to tie him up. Accounts for the blood on him. They find the weapon?"

Goren shook his head. "If they are anything like last time, they may well cap and dump their own man"

"Shiiit" murmured Tutuola realising for the first time the violence was not restricted to the victims.

"And the rest I guess you know. When his buddies realised what was happening the two big guys arrived. Tied Paul up to the desk chair and he says it was the largest one was told to punish his sister for what he did. Thinks it was _"Green"._ Next thing this man is sodomising Holly on his bed. Only thing he did say Bobby and you see why he would not in front of the folks, was this guy was hung. I mean the sort is a real nuisance to have…not just the size gives a guy locker room confidence"

Goren could understand why the boy might have looked. It was an extreme example of that part of human nature can't bring itself to look at a horror movie but still does. The _"hide behind the cushion but still peek"_ phenomenon as he thought of it.

"Of course he feels…feels a pervert for taking a look but he was able to tell me something else. The guy has a birthmark. Quite a big one…port wine stain covers most of his left butt cheek"

"We think he's on the DNA register" said Goren opening his phone.

"I'll go tell him again how useful he might have been. Give the Dad some numbers to call to get Paul some help"

"Thanks buddy" Goren said giving Finn's shoulder a gentle slap as he left the kitchen.

He had already mentioned to James Young the importance of trying not to blame his son for the consequence of his actions. He was still having a harder time trying to balance the wreckage all around him with the fear of Thomas Lacey for his kid, who had come out of this one way or other unscathed. But Goren still felt this could have been prevented and possibly the gang or some of it rounded up, had he told the truth.

As he spoke to the Squad Room it was to clarify the alert to the hospitals for a stab wound to the gut and get someone to start looking at convicted sex offenders with birthmarks on their ass. And to be told Eames seemed to be well on the way to narrowing down a location where Tommy had been held. The Young's loss of twenty grand's worth of jewellery, ten of silver and two paintings about the same, seemed to pale into insignificance right now.

_**To be continued…**_


	25. Chapter 25

**Thursday 7****th**** May**

_**East 91**__**st**__** Street**_

Jenny picked up the telephone to call Marty in Queens soon after Frank left. Two hours late but she assured him it would be okay. Though he did not realise it, she knew his _"boss"_ Joe Haslam would not be around today. He would be over at the Queens branch of _"Custom Cars"_ where the guys took almost all the stolen goods at first and where they would lay low for a day or so. Waiting to see the response and reaction from the cops.

Frank had jumped at the proposal she put to him when he came round after her slightly overdosing him with sleeping pills last night, fearing he might be building resistance. And depending on how things went, Marty might jump at the one she had to put to him. Her _"currency"_ with him was running low, if not her bank balance. She only had one other name to give to him and a strong suspicion how Clarkson intended to keep his name from ever getting linked to these robberies.

_**Office Of the Captain, Major Case Squad**_

Danny Ross put down his phone with a sigh. The news was not unexpected. He had two teams out working with local precincts and some officers from SWAT. Logan and Wheeler as well as Faith Dempsey and Matt Desmond. Trying to track down this Joseph Haslam, almost certainly _"Mr Green"_ in the gang, since the birthmark enabled them to identify him from the records. He must have gained forty pounds or more since their last details for him.

And like so many offenders with sex crimes to their name, he seemed to have dropped off the radar since he completed his parole just over two years ago. Mike and Megan had just struck out at another possible address for him and Ross did not doubt Logan might well have used some fairly ruthless tactics to get that from an old associate. But Haslam did not seem to running with his old crowd so much, if at all.

Ross poured himself coffee and stood for a while looking out of the window. Well aware that along the hall Goren, no doubt ably assisted by Eames, was going as close to the line as he dare with Robert Lacey the Third in the presence of his lawyer. Usually they relied on _"smart"_ but Bobby could be very harsh and brutal when he needed to be. Be the sort of guy his height and build implied, instead of the soft-spoken and rather gentle man his real nature was.

The Captain knew some of the rage was probably genuine. From a sleep deprived and frustrated detective, when he told Lacey quite graphically the number of stitches Holly Young needed and where. In contrast to the snippets of information about his son that Eames had fed him. Almost tormenting him about the fact he didn't get to see Tommy yet and might not, if his ex-wife had anything to do with it.

Whether it would persuade him to remember a few more things he had chosen to not say or jog genuine amnesia, Ross did not know. But Goren had returned from the Young apartment with a little more information and needing the answer to something else. How this gang moved from Chester Lonsdale to him as a source of information. Lacey was claiming not to know the man, but somewhere they probably had someone in common.

Ross saw that himself as soon as he saw those almost doodles Goren did in his folder. The upside down _"V's"_ that linked the seven previous crimes to Lonsdale and now two to Lacey and maybe more, if the gang acted on either of the other two locations. Because there had to be a third _"tier"_ to that diagram. Someone in a position to identify and target the two men. He watched a tour boat heading upstream on the East River and wondered something else.

How James Young would react if he knew his name and address got into the hands of that gang thanks to a guy he vaguely knew from _The Downtown Racquet Club_. Whom Young had approached, asking if he could recommend and arrange insurance cover for him for when he re-located to the city. Some sort of favour that turned out to be. Ross was also wondering how that information could be put into Young's hands. As he would eventually ask _"how this happened"_ to his family. How the gang knew what valuables they had and when they were moving to the city?

Sometimes being a cop posed you hard and conflicting legal, moral and ethical dilemmas.

_**The Vicksburg Apartments, Sherman Ave, Hoboken, New Jersey**_

It had taken until close to nine that night to find and get to the address where one of the gang might be located. The one who had held Tommy Lacey, along with a woman who may or may not be the one associated with them, he called _"Auntie"._ After his ordeal he had needed not just to eat but also to sleep and at four years old, getting clues from him was not easy.

The local cops had spent some time tracking down apartment buildings with views of the various parks and which might meet the vague number of floors the kid thought he was above ground level. The trouble was none seemed to have a _"green house"_ that the child had described in the same street, never mind opposite as he had explained the situation to Eames. The reason for that turned out to be simple. The house had grey painted weatherboards and that was a colour Tommy had yet to learn.

Eventually, one of the officers cruising locally worked that out when he saw a large white dog taking a dump in the front yard of a residence in Sherman Avenue. Tommy identified the house and the dog from pictures and research on the residents of the building across the street eventually resulted in the name of Gerard Dipnall. The only one with a record. For petty crime associated with gambling and an uncanny fit to the smallest man in the group when it came to height and build. The one their spreadsheet had as _"Mr Black"._

The delay which frustrated Eames and Goren after that, was a legal one with the premises out of the New York jurisdiction and papers needing to fly between DA's, courts and police each side of the Hudson. Before they were finally moving up the stairwell guns drawn. In the company of a well armed team from New Jersey, whilst the rest of the building was surrounded and secured.

"Bobby" hissed Eames to her partner in the hall.

He turned to see her look. One that said, _"Get back here with me"._ It was one women seemed born able to give the male of the species. From when you were a small child liable to wander off in a mall away from your Mom, right through your teens when your High School girlfriends thought you were speaking a little too much to another female and then into your maturity. When you were failing to show sufficient interest in what the woman in your life was browsing in a store.

As he complied meekly, Goren knew why his partner gave him that look. He was altogether too close to where the door was about to be broken in for her liking and for a man wearing only a bullet proof. Eames wanted the better protected and armed specialists to go in first not knowing who, how many and what they would find waiting for them.

In the small living area they found just one man. By then, flat on his face on the floor and squealing with pain as he was cuffed behind. When they turned him over he yelped again as Goren holstered his gun, squatted down beside him and poked none too gently at the bloody and amateurish dressings around his lower abdomen to determine how bad things were. Someone was calling for medics and Goren had no doubt he was looking at and smelling Gerard Dipnall. The temptation to prod him a little harder was close to overwhelming for him by then. He was short of sleep and angry and frustrated by the case. And it might just _"persuade"_ Dipnall to give them some names.

He stood up and went to join his partner in the only bedroom.

"Dipnall is saying nothing" he muttered.

"These look like the clothes Tommy was wearing when he was taken" she said pointing to items on the floor.

"Someone left in a hurry" said Goren opening fully one of the closet doors. "Only spaces seem to be where the women's clothes and shoes were"

Eames picked up a picture frame thrown on the floor. "This lady I expect. Looks like _"auntie"_ might have been Liz Dipnall"

Goren looked at the wedding photograph, which had a date on the frame from two years ago.

"Don't think she was the woman on the boat or the one knocked on the Young's door" he said "She looks too young and about thirty pounds heavier than our mystery woman"

"I thought the same" said Eames as she picked through some papers on the floor. "Bank and credit card statements Goren"

He squatted beside her and began to go through them with her. It took them maybe five minutes to sort them out, by which time Dipnall was on his way to St Mary's Hospital.

"No sign of anything else for this account opened just recently with twenty thousand bucks" said Eames handing Goren a confirmation letter from a bank.

"In cash" he mused. "And more money than ever seemed to be in this one. I think Liz Dipnall has run off. No car in the lot, clothes taken and dust marks in the closet the size of a suitcase"

Eames shrugged. "With Jed's cut of the loot so far. It would tie in with what Tommy said too. That when she woke him up and then left him at the group home, he was sure _"uncle"_ was no-where around"

"Probably still on his way back from Manhattan with a stab wound to the gut courtesy of Paul Young. Time line would be about right"

"With no record herself until now I don't blame her" muttered Eames. "She's facing possible kidnap charges if we traced her somehow…and if she knew her old man was hurt and would need hospital treatment, Liz would have known the chances of that increased"

"So much for _until death us do part_" Goren murmured. "There is another possibility. She knew the gang intended to keep Tommy longer, perhaps even feared they would kill him and wanted none of that. Let him go without the say so of the leader and knew what he'd do if he caught up to her"

"Wonder why they didn't shoot him like they did Max James?" said Eames bagging certain items.

"Recruited a marine won't leave a fallen colleague?" yawned Goren. "Or maybe just circumstances. Only sheer chance those kids found his body"

"You need to get some sleep Bobby" said his partner in that tone of bullying kindness he knew so well.

_**To be continued…**_


	26. Chapter 26

**Friday 9****th**** May**

_**Roark's Bar**_

The pitcher of beer sat in the centre of the table with two empty glasses beside it and Goren sat for a moment watching the condensation run down the outside of his own. The silence between himself and Eames was close to gloomy.

"Perhaps she will contact one of her family" said Eames.

His glance across at her in reply had a _"you must be kidding"_ quality to it. They had spent part of the day tracking down family, friends and co-workers of Liz Dipnall. None claimed to have heard from her or know where she might have gone. Trouble was, they both believed them.

And her husband recovering in hospital was still saying nothing. Not even the prospect of generous consideration on kidnap and robbery charges, as soon as the labs matched his blood with that found on Paul Young, had moved him from his _"no comment"_ strategy. Even when encouraged by his own lawyer to think hard about telling Goren and Eames all he knew, when they went to the hospital to question him.

Goren sipped his beer. "Most likely thing to get us something to go on is a press release. Announcing we have information will lead us to the gang"

Eames glanced at him. "That would be a death sentence to Jed Dipnall while he's on remand at Northern or East Jersey. Not that I have a lot of sympathy with him, Bobby. But you know that would be the result and still leave us without anything to go on. Apart from checking out hundreds of Lincoln's for sign of recent damage"

"Unless…" he said glancing up as two figures came towards them.

Logan and Wheeler slid into the booth beside them as Goren poured beer into the other glasses.

"We bring good news" grinned Mike.

"Or at least not bad" said his partner.

They had been working the angle of _"who"_ or _"what"_ was the link between Chester Lonsdale and Thomas Lacey III. Going through appointment books and checking back with the dead man's office and family.

Logan lifted his glass "Lets' drink to _The Windy City_"

"Chicago?" frowned Eames.

"Uhuh" Megan swallowed. "Or the _National Association of Insurance Providers_. That's where they held their bi-annual convention almost two years ago. Both men were there and that's the only thing we found they have in common. Lonsdale for the full week and Lacey for a couple of days"

"How many were at the convention?" asked Goren.

"Close to five thousand people over the whole week" said Logan. "But before either of you groan, they are sending us a full list of the delegates. I figure we start with the local ones. See what they turn up and since we have to work tomorrow and are under instruction from upstairs to give this priority, we'll be sharing your misery"

"If that helps?" added Wheeler.

"Yes" said Eames.

"No" said Goren before noting the looks and amending that to _"A little"_

He drained his glass with a glance at his watch and said _"excuse me"_ to Megan to let him out of the booth.

"I…um…I need to go" he said slipping on his jacket, picking up his folder and turning to the exit. "See you tomorrow"

When he was out of earshot in the crowded bar, Wheeler spoke.

"Bobby seems very distracted by all this Alex. He okay?"

"Tired" she shrugged. "Personal stuff too I think"

She was thinking of, but not saying anything about, Jenny Archer. Who she was, how she was somehow involved with Goren's brother and how her partner had gone back to some of his _"old ways"_. When he was badly worried about Frank or his Mom in the past, he would never mention them. Close down completely on his private life and that was exactly what Bobby had done all week.

"Don't blame him" shrugged Logan. "I would be distracted in his shoes. Going to meet a woman I have to tell I need to cut short the house hunt this weekend. For work."

"Mmm" said Eames setting down her glass.

"Now that is a thankless job for any man" he went on. "_Oh we must go back and see this one again honey_ and _yes I know we can't really afford it_. Either that or they fall in love with a fixer upper will take you the rest of your life to fix"

"You really do know how to endear yourself to women don't you Mike?" growled Wheeler.

"I don't think his ideas of endearment extend beyond not dropping his clothes on the bedroom floor and letting himself out quietly" said Eames.

Logan grinned. "Well you got two out of three right. But one of you ladies will have to do a little more to achieve the trifecta. Be worth it. I guarantee you"

"_No thanks"_ the two women in unison.

"And not according to the locker room wall" added Megan with a wink at Eames.

That shut him up and left Logan with a slightly puzzled expression made them laugh.

**Saturday 10****th**** May**

_**Custom Cars, Rego Park, Queens**_

Marty Clarkson wiped the cocaine residue from the end of his nose, told Crystal to get out and sat back for a moment at his desk. Angry and thinking this is what you got for _"being nice"_. Should have pushed Weasel Dipnall off the Triborough Bridge with a couple of cinder blocks round his ankles. Instead of listening to that former smack head, Denton and letting him drive the guy back to Jersey.

Either the stab wound was worse than he said or for some reason Weasel never got to that struck off doctor Harcourt knew. One would treat wounds _"no questions asked"_ and do illegal abortions. That had to be how the cops lifted him so easy and the only good thing was they must have found nothing at that moron's apartment to link Dipnall to him and the others. And he had not talked. Yet.

With no way to get at Weasel to ensure his silence so long as he was tucked up in hospital under police guard, Clarkson had no choice but to wait to deal with him. When he was sure where he was. However, that did not stop him punishing Harcourt Denton.

He picked up the cell to call his half brother Jack. They might be descended illegitimately but the legend that was Don Fredo Masucci was still his grandfather, _God rest his soul._ And that still counted for something.

It was only after another snort of cocaine he remembered why there was probably no reply earlier from that bitch Jenny. Still out celebrating no doubt.

**Sunday 11****th**** May**

_**St Luke's Place, Greenwich Village**_

"You'll be telling me next you couldn't live on a street named for a saint" Caro teased him.

"I just think it will take a lot of work" said Goren as he took another look round a kitchen they had already decided needed completely re-fitting.

"One reason it's so cheap" she shrugged leaning over the sink to look into the garden below.

"Want to go look at that jungle next I suppose?"

"Want to take that scowl off your face Rob? And no. The basement"

He followed Caroline meekly to the stairs. Her folks might have offered to give them the same sort of financial gift they had her three siblings when they got married, or in David's case, moved in with the woman he now had a son with. It had taken her a while to persuade him out of what she called his _"stiff necked independence and pride"_ to even consider accepting it. Goren knew when he got home from work yesterday she was up to something. The dinner cooking, clothes showed her hard to resist assets to best advantage and the offer to run him a bath.

To his credit he did get it out of Caro, pre-coital not post when, like most men, he'd be like putty in her hands. Physically and mentally. Nor was it that he did not see the potential of the lower three floors of a five story town house. It even came, given the location, with the almost obligatory middle-aged gay guys on the top two floors.

Down in the dusty basement, which had originally been a kitchen and servant accommodation when the house was built, they picked their way by empty boxes and ancient newspapers.

"Great place for a pool table" he mused. "Maybe a bar that end and…"

Even by the dim light from the three bulbs he knew he pushed that idea as far as he could. Instead, he took one end of the tape measure Caro took from the pocket of her jeans and held it where he was told. And waited for her to complete an inspection of some pipe work in the corner.

"Excellent idea Rob" Caro smiled. "We could even have a hot tub put in this corner"

"Or?"

"Or we could, since the services are here move the kitchen down here, make a big open living space…" he watched her pace to the door into the garden. "I wouldn't mind betting we could widen this. To create doors out to the garden…use that corner and under the stairs to make a laundry or cloakroom save hiking up to the second floor"

"There's not enough room in the old kitchen upstairs for a pool table sweetie. And a hot tub"

"No but it would make a extra space on the first floor we could use as an office or maybe a third bedroom"

It made perfect sense. The second one upstairs was on the small side. But Goren wasn't about to admit that immediately. He had to make out he still had some _"cohones"_ left.

"The bathroom needs tearing out Caro"

"I know but it's big enough to take a separate shower. Which you really like"

"And I can't do all of the work myself. More than simple plumbing is a mystery to me. Or did you buy a large D-I-Y manual when you were out yesterday?"

"No. But I did work out what we would save on the commute even from your apartment. In time and money. And it doesn't all have to be done at once. Most of the first floor is just decoration Rob"

"Once the kitchen is moved I guess it would be" he paced to and fro. "But you don't know it won't require major steelwork to open that end up more"

"It won't"

"Who says?"

Goren stared at her and knew a _"guilty"_ expression when he saw one.

"Peter upstairs" she mumbled.

"I didn't quite catch that Caro" he cupped his ear.

"Well okay. I had a few minutes to spare so came here yesterday. He's an architect Rob so…um…so he also had a rough idea what it would all cost" her voice dropped again "And we can afford it"

"What was that Caro?"

"I said try to use your imagination Rob"

She glanced at him "And not like that!"

_**To be continued…**_


	27. Chapter 27

**Monday 11****th**** May**

_**Bay View Avenue, Jersey City**_

Ben Roberts, the building super had enough. Harcourt Denton in 5D had been playing that music since late last night. He was sick of the complaints from other tenants about the noise and he must be there because his car was in the street. He was calling the cops. Get them to find reason to bust in there.

"_**Midtown PC Depot", Broadway/38**__**th**__** St**_

Delivering six laptops was not how Frank had imagined spending part of his day, even if it was as a favour to a buddy of Joe Haslam left them off an order the other day. Seemed to come as a surprise to the snot nosed kid there doing a stock take on a day the store was usually closed. But he took them and it was up to them to sort it out with their supplier or these _"Speedy Commercial"_ guys uptown.

And if it meant writing off the four hundred he was now down in the poker game that was fine by Frank. He did not want Jenny to know how reduced his first paycheck would be otherwise. She would never trust him with access to her accounts to enjoy a few _"extras"_ until he proved he was reliable with money.

_**Major Case Squad Room**_

Goren startled as he glanced up to see not Eames returning from the cafeteria with lunch for them both, but Dick Nichols himself. When the Chief made one of his rare forays from his office upstairs it was rarely good news. It meant you were either about to get a brief _"thanks and good luck"_ speech or a verbal kicking. He sat down in her chair.

He ended the call with one Wilma Allsopp as quickly as possible. She had, it turned out, not gone to the convention in Chicago at the last minute. And whilst he sympathised with the lung cancer her husband was still fighting, Goren like everyone was pressed for time.

"No luck I take it Detective Goren?"

"No sir" he crossed another name off the list. "We started with the people who were down to attend seminars with Lonsdale or Lacey. Trouble is people switch round last minute, some have changed jobs, moved house and…" he trailed off.

"Bound to happen Bobby" Nichols said mildly. "And you know what these conventions are like. Could have been a chance meeting in a bar. Take it you checked the people stayed in the same hotels?"

"We would if we knew that sir. The organisers did not keep that data though…though…"

He turned to flick through the sheets several of the officers in the room had on their desks.

"What are you thinking Detective?"

"About bars sir. The fact both the men were men…away from home…and wondering if we should prioritise the women. We know there's one tied into this somehow and we don't think it's Dipnall's wife"

"With you. A little convention canoodling more than a _Cubs_ game in common?" pondered Nichols.

"Yeah though with Lonsdale dead…"

"Leave Lacey to me Goren. See what pressure I can exert via his old man. And don't look at me like that. I didn't forget completely how to do the job"

"No sir. Of course not" Goren said briskly.

He had not been aware his face gave him away so plainly on that occasion.

"Not just here to ride your ass Bobby. Not this time"

"Thank you sir"

With that Dick Nichols was gone leaving Goren still not sure why he dropped by. He gave his head a metaphorical shake to clear the thought and turned to the next person on the list.

_**Vestry Street, Soho**_

Jack McCoy set down his phone wondering why it was Al did not mention to Bobby she would be at her place that night. He also understood the significance of what he had said about a body found in Jersey City.

One of the files on his desk he had glanced at earlier was the process Teresa had in hand to get one Gerard Dipnall into the New York jurisdiction on some very heavy charges. He was also aware, as her boss, she had a different view to Al and Bobby on the matter of his segregation or otherwise when he was discharged from hospital to prison.

With his record, his wife apparently on the run with a lot of cash and the charges pending from the City, there was no way he'd get bail. But Randle felt they should press the idea of keeping him away from the general population. As an incentive to talk to someone from NYPD about the robberies. Bobby and Al were taking the hard line and hoping that would work as a threat to loosen his tongue.

McCoy had stayed clear of any opinion on the matter, not wanting any suggestion of partiality or conflict of interest. Though when they discussed the case in general terms, he had sensed Teresa watching like a hawk for any suggestion of that. She was one of those not averse to a bit of _"office politics"_ now and then.

Al was right from the start. Them _"getting into"_ something with each other was a minor complication at times. Jack smiled, remembering her face when she said that at the end of their first meal together and he suggested they might do it again. Or more the expression when he asked what made her so sure they were _"getting into"_ anything? Except in his case, a cab to go home.

He was still very glad they had as he turned to the permanent problem of the number of cases the office had and the time they were taking to bring to court and then get through the system. Easy to bridle against the need to plea bargain as much as you could when you were just the Executive ADA. Different matter when you had the big desk and the big office.

_**Greenville Hospital Mortuary, New Jersey**_

Goren had hesitated to call Eames when he got news they might be interested in the corpse of one Harcourt Denton. He had barely swallowed his own dinner and made a start on his notes for the talk at the Academy on Thursday. Was an ace away from saying it could wait until the morning.

He was beat and very aware that the demands of this case already meant Caro was trying to do a lot long distance from Boston. To get things moving on what might be their new home. It was not that he lacked imagination at all or the inclination to do the work they would need to. Mostly it was just very old-fashioned décor or not replaced in years by the elderly former occupant who had originally owned the whole property.

If anything it was the reverse. He wanted to live there as much as she did, to make it _"their"_ home and it sucked that this case was so high profile and pressure right now. Nor had he lied to her when he decided not to tell her at the weekend what else he had discovered about Jenny Archer. They got so little time and he badly needed for them to spend it in a positive way as much as possible.

Eames was scanning the ME's report and what they knew about the height and build of the black gang member as the technician pulled out the mortuary drawer.

"That all fits" she murmured. "Same as that ring of Mrs Young's"

It was finding that, plus five grand in cash at the home of an apparent suicide or OD of an addict or former one, that had made the local cops suspicious. Fortunately, because it was fairly distinctive and a _"one off"_ made for her, there was little doubt of its origins when they checked the stolen property lists.

Goren pulled back the sheet and extracted the left arm. He did not need to point out the old track marks or the place where bruising was evident around a recent tiny puncture wound.

"Think he would bruise himself that badly Eames? Got so out of practice?"

"Doubt it. Or inject himself with near enough an overdose quantity well laced with ketamine" she turned the page. "In a concentration to knock out a pony if not a horse"

Eames knew she had learned a lot more about an array of drugs, their effects and lethal potential from working with her partner. Not all of it information he learned from his days in Narco either.

"There is a street market in that" he shrugged.

"But no evidence he'd been using recently from hair and other samples…" she paused turning to another sheet.

"And while Mr Denton might have got his lethal cocktail elsewhere, Detective Carson says there is no local pattern of ketamine abuse. None stolen or missing"

"Wonder why he only had five grand at his place and no evidence he might have other accounts?" Goren said replacing the arm and pulling the shroud back into place.

"Either there is discrimination in the payouts they were getting or Harcourt here has been framed post mortem or…or do you need me to tell you"

"He kept his share in cash and whoever killed him, if he was killed, took the rest. Left a small amount to make it look like he was dealing or moving stolen property"

They thanked the technician and made their way towards the exit where Carson had opted to wait, being one of those who avoided morgues as much as he could.

"Did you?" he asked.

Goren frowned before remembering he was wearing his _"I hiked the Grand Canyon" _commemorative T-shirt.

"Yeah"

"Not sure if I envy you or think you're crazy. But you were right about the address for that company _Speedy Commercial_ he had work ID for Detective Eames. Was more than a little hinkey. Five-one-five Lennox Avenue is the full postal address for the _Schomberg Center for Research into Black Culture_"

"You owe me five Goren" she grinned with a gesture at him. "He thought it was _Syvia's_"

"Whose?" asked Carson.

"Great soul food place if you are ever that way" said Goren reaching in the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet.

"So you think this is one of your guys?"

"What I think is, he might be a message" Goren replied. "Not to us but to a certain Jed Dipnall and maybe others"

"Long story" smiled Eames at the Jersey City cop as she took the five-dollar bill from her partner.

_**To be continued…**_

_AN:__ Bobby hiked the Grand Canyon just prior to the events in "A Friend Of Mine"_


	28. Chapter 28

**Tuesday 13****th**** May**

_**"Midtown PC Depot", Broadway/38th**_

Eames was in the office of the store with the manager and the _"fool kid"_ had accepted delivery of an order they did not place. One that Kevin Montgomery had double-checked for that reason. They ran a straight operation and as soon as he found the serial number for one of the famously stolen laptops, he called it in.

Goren was in the stock room with a recently arrived Jimmy Antonelli, who on this occasion and single handed, was glad of his help and a cop who really did know how to handle evidence properly. Though it was the CSU technician who noticed the box, which had been opened and re-sealed with different tape.

Trapping under it some hair, which seemed to have root attached and be a possible DNA source. Goren could see that under the magnifier as he cut that section out under Jimmy's guidance. A mixture of fading dark and full grey. The sort he saw in the mirror daily. And might well match the still untraced, Joe Haslam for whom they had DNA.

The false address and non-existent company it looked at one stage like Harcourt worked for, was the same one as delivered the laptops. Whether this was an attempt to implicate someone else who would turn up dead who could say. None of them could make sense of what was going on right now. About the only thing he, Logan and Ross had agreed at the urinal earlier, was it did almost look as if someone was covering his or her tracks.

The company looked to be a complete phantom. A _"front"_ for use when it suited someone. One gang member was dead for sure, Denton looked good to both be one of them and the subject of a very suspicious death. And they had Jed Dipnall tucked up in a hospital bed for another day or two thanks to the infection he got. That is what happens when a knife nicks your lower intestine and you don't get it treated for almost 24 hours.

He and Eames met in the hallway.

"Late forties" she said. "Kid's going downtown to work with a sketch artist"

"Would fit the hair we found under tape in there Eames. Dark but greying. Anything on the vehicle?"

"Small white panel truck is all we got. As to height and build he would come closest to this Mr Blue. Except if that was his hair you found, that would not fit with Wexler's impression he was one of the younger ones in the group"

Eames tried a little humour. "Unless Blue turned grey very young…whereas mid to late forties…around your…"

"You made your point Eames" Goren muttered. "You don't have so long before everything starts to head south you know. Difference between you and me?"

"I would do something about it Bobby?"

"No Alex. I would be too polite to mention it. Now let's head south together if you are done here"

She followed that broad back out the door knowing there was just a little smile on his face. Same as there was hers. And determined to get more out of Bobby about this place he and Caro were hoping to buy. Circumstances had not given her much chance to pry. Or rather to make polite enquiry.

_**Male Locker Room, Floor 11, 1PP**_

Goren came out of the stall and at the washbasin tossed water onto his face. He had not been sick when he hurried from the Squad Room to get to a toilet, but it felt like he was going to be. That sensation in the mouth as the contents of your stomach start to come back up the wrong way. As he rinsed and spat he was very close to shaking. With fear and dread and uncertainty what he should do for the best.

And whose _"best"_ would that be if it was? The victims of this gang of which there had been far too many? The vague concept of the _"society"_ he was paid to police and protect. Or his own, that Goren wasn't used to putting first much in his life? Until that built up and up over many years and he came close to destroying everything he was or thought he was and everything he had achieved. And worst of all, what was in his _"best"_ interest?

Except, of course, it was simple really. It was doing the things he _"ought"_ to do. The morally right thing, the things he should do as a cop and the ones, which should mess up his life the least. Not when something and someone he wanted and needed so badly was so close. Almost in his grasp for the first time. He had to do the best for him and Caro. Even if that was at the expense of his relationship, what little was left of it, with his brother.

Goren was refastening his top buttons and tie, loosened when he thought he was going to puke, as someone came from behind the lines of lockers.

"Bobby?" said Logan's voice. "You okay? You ran off like a man trying to steal home plate"

"No Mike I'm not" he replied quietly.

"I can see that now. Want to tell me?"

"I should tell Ross"

"He's just left for a meeting" Logan shoved his hands in his pockets and paced. "Might help to try it out on someone else first"

"Get my story straight you mean"

"Meaning?" snapped Logan.

"Not meaning anything Mike. You were a dumb cop once never a dirty one"

"Nothing they proved" he smiled. "More sensitive than I realised I guess"

"We all…we all have our Achilles heel"

"Never did know what that meant"

"Achilles was dipped in the river Styx to him make invulnerable, immortal. Except the part he was held by. His foot meaning that was his weak spot and where he was eventually shot with an arrow"

"Shit, no wonder you piss off your partner at times" hissed Logan. "And there was me thinking he was the guy who shouted _"Eureka"_ and before you say anything? I remember now that was Archimedes and he was a Greek geek. Now, are you going to tell Uncle Mike all or hide out in here until Alex sends out a search party when she gets back from the interview room?"

They sat on the bench by the lockers and Goren quietly told Logan everything. Starting with the information Nichols had somehow extracted from Lacey. That in Chicago, the only thing out of the ordinary was he got laid. Was in the middle of being divorced by _Wife One_ who had caught him out in an affair with eventual _Wife Two_. Too many drinks in a hotel bar after a reception and he'd had a drunken roll around with a girl from the West Coast. Seattle or maybe San Francisco and he couldn't remember her name next morning never mind now. Only she was a blond. Early thirties.

With Eames taking a formal statement from a now less distressed Paul Young, Goren had returned to the Squad Room. Now looking at women with West Coast addresses on the convention lists. Matt offered to split it with him and Bobby had taken A to H. He had hardly started to look down the first section when the name _"Jennifer Archer"_ jumped out at him. Listed at a Seattle address at the time and working for _"Pacific Assurance"_, as a Human Resources Manager. Except he knew a lot more than that about her, more than he ever told Caro or Eames and perhaps more than she knew herself.

That was when the word _"co-incidence"_ began to wear very thin for Goren. When the population of the USA is 300 million people and when he remembered, according to Jenny, she moved to New York in January. When his stomach felt halfway up his throat and the saliva in his mouth suddenly increased in response to that. And had a strange taste to it.

Logan listened asking only a question or two, as Goren explained exactly who she was. How he'd had an illicit DNA test done on her and how his brother, who would broadly fit the description of the guy who delivered the stolen laptops, was living with this Jenny Archer. Half sister to Nicole Wallace, though of previous good character as far as they knew. Frank who said something vague about going to work for a firm in the transport business and whose whereabouts Goren could not account for in recent months.

When he was finished Mike agreed he must tell Ross the whole thing as soon as possible, that he might need to be taken off the case until this was sorted out and he could only do one thing. As his friend. And that was to ask for him and Megan to be assigned the case temporarily.

In which case, Goren's first task was to tell Alex the parts she did not know. Or maybe second as he went first to the _Crime Scene Unit_. He owed Jill Quinell the warning, though he would do his best to imply he had the test done privately. And at least she did not throw things at him before he left the lab.

_**To be continued…**_


	29. Chapter 29

**Wednesday 14****th**** May**

_**The Streets Of Brooklyn**_

Goren guessed he must have been walking for almost two hours. Through lit streets that were slightly familiar. From the last time this became one of his less destructive habits almost eighteen months ago. When night after night his head would not seem to switch off. To either let him get some sleep or stay that way for very long.

Turning over some work problem and his fast disintegrating life. His mother dying and only him around to both handle the issues that arose from that and to deal with the stresses. Frank, he was now so worried about, not so worried back then about either him or Mom that he bothered to show up often, stick around or do anything positive.

His brother in many ways was not _"deserving"_ of his concern now or the insomnia, which resulted for two nights now. And which meant almost every time a phone rang in the Squad Room, Goren expected it to be news a body had been found matched Frank's description. No matter what, you could not get away from the fact they were brothers. The closest biological flesh and blood each other had.

Goren crossed the street to avoid a bar and the alluring scents of different alcohol from within. He had not even begun to go down the route of using that as a sedative like last time. Found himself staring in the window of a toy store. Nice to see that amid all the electronic gizmo's and movie franchised products kids seemed to go for these days, there were some examples of playthings he and Frank would have been very familiar with.

It was sometimes too easy to forget for a lot of years they were very close and like any other brothers. The occasional bickering and for him, as the youngest, the sort of getting picked on now and then was probably quite normal. The superiority Frank would assert at times in ball games simply because he was bigger then and had a head start in terms of skill. But also hours of fun with each other and getting into typical childhood scrapes Frank always took more share of the blame for. Because he was the oldest and _"should know better"._

Goren turned away and walked on, slightly startled by a trash bin tipping over down an alley and at least one cat yowling in fright as his extra supper almost fell on him. By the time he got to tell Ross everything he knew and some of what he feared yesterday, those fears had already grown. The kid from the computer store had come up with a picture bore a very close resemblance to Frank. At least to himself and Eames were the only people who had seen him recently.

When he left what was essentially a private interview with the Captain and on his desk a few sheets of what he knew about Frank might help them, Goren knew Eames would be uneasy when she was sent for. At being left in _"point"_ position in the enquiry, now teamed with Mike and backed up by Megan and Matt Desmond. But it had to be someone really knew everything inside out and as Ross said, it might be for just a very short time. While they straightened this angle out. As Goren recalled, he even managed to say something to the effect it was likely to turn out to be nothing. Just a pity Ross didn't sound at all convincing when he said it.

That had left Goren having to play catch up with Faith Dempsey on another caseload, which at least kept him _"busy"._ Not so much when they returned an interview uptown, he had not known the progress being made. How there was no sign of Frank or Jenny at the East 91st apartment and best anyone could establish, had not been since the previous night. When they were seen leaving, with a couple of bags, as if going on a short trip.

Possible that was it, but some combination of the four detectives across the room had also established some other things by a mix of guile and threat and the helpfulness of people they had spoken to. Lacey had picked out Jenny from her Oregon driver's licence picture as _"possibly"_ the woman he slept with in Chicago. And through her former employers they established she stayed at the same hotel as Chester Lonsdale. Meaning she might well have made less intimate and casual acquaintance with him.

The one piece of _"good news" _was however he may or may not be tied into this affair now; Frank could not have been a participant in the initial theft of the computers he delivered. He was firmly alibied by his work sheets from the Excelsior Hotel complex in Miami for that date and six of the other eight robberies. It was only for the last two he was certainly back in New York.

Jenny Archer's movements were harder to track but it was _"interesting"_ to use the word Matt Desmond had, that the Excelsior had her registered for a large part of the two periods Goren himself had noted. The breaks in the pattern of robberies. When he wondered if items were being disposed of in Miami and elsewhere. He supposed Ross, maybe Nichol or someone higher up was speaking to their opposite numbers down in Florida. To get a more determined follow up undertaken and everything onto the local _"watch list"_ for stolen goods reputable buyers would check.

Frank seeming, for a large part, to be in the clear was the one piece of good news he was able to tell Caro. When they spoke last night and he told her the whole story. Expecting to be in trouble for keeping something fairly fundamental from her for fear his covert checking on Jenny would seem like paranoia. One not cured by the death of her cousin, though one, which just might be justified.

Caro had some of the same puzzles he did. About how and why a fairly wealthy woman in her own right might have suddenly turned to a life of criminal associations. Never mind get involved with Frank in this whirlwind romance down in Miami. Talking to her helped set Goren's mind a little at rest if not enough to sleep well and her good news she might have a serious buyer for the Boston house helped. Except it made him more heartsick for it's cosy comfort last winter and the carefree and happy times they had there together. Where he finally got up courage to suggest they try to make this work on a permanent basis.

Goren realised he was staring unseeing into the window of a kitchen and bathroom suppliers. Getting a warm but brief glow at the thought of the squabbles yet to come on those things, if they got the St Luke's Place property. And wondering, before he turned away and headed back in the direction of his apartment, about tubs with central faucets. Whether the advantage of the view he would get of her when they were both in it, offset the loss of physical contact with you both at the same _"end"._ _Except one of those gave you the option, so it had to be better and what were a couple of extra feet of pipe work in the scheme of things?_

Just a pity he could not focus on all that right now. Not when DNA analysis of that hair stuck under the box tape showed an incredibly close match to only one other on the system. The one they checked first. His own. Somehow Frank's hair got under that tape. And unless Mom and Dad had another son somewhere, it had to be his.

Goren halted on the threshold of a bodega a few blocks from home. He did not need to be going back to nicotine either. He turned away. Two for two in the resistance of temptation was good going. Father John would be proud of him.

_**The Atlantic Ocean, Three Miles Off Seaside Heights, New Jersey**_

One man stopped the boat while the other completed the job of tying cinder blocks around the body that lay on a sheet of plastic on the rear sun deck. There was not much blood. Only amateurs used a heavy calibre pistol would blow brain matter somewhere you would then have to clean up. Couple of twenty-two's did the job nicely and no gore and bone splinters to worry about.

They used the sheet to lift and slide him over the side, where he quickly sank to become fish food then tied the plastic around two more blocks and tossed that into the sea. The taller but less heavy of the two returned to the wheel to steer _"The Penguin"_ to its shallow offshore mooring. While his companion lit a cigar and sat in a sheltered spot on the open deck to enjoy it.

That was when he noticed one of the fingers had fallen off. He picked it up and tossed it overboard, where briefly it seemed to give him a single digit gesture. Before it was lost in the wash of the propellers. He poured some soda from a can to remove a small bloodstain. The idiot should have done as he was asked straight way instead of resisting and them needing to get the wire cutters out for persuasion. The end result would have been the same, but he could have saved himself considerable discomfort in the last hour of his life. And them. From his damned squealing with the pain.

Some men never learn or are slow to work things out.

_**To be continued…**_


	30. Chapter 30

**Thursday 15****th**** May**

_**Hudson River Piers**_

All of the hundred or so piers on the west side of Manhattan Island had once had ships lining up to use them. To offload passengers from smart liners before airline travel took over or cargo from the Eastern Seaboard and all over the world. Raw goods like cotton or molasses for manufacture in the, by modern standards, small factory complexes that lined the nearby shore.

Those days were gone. Ships had got bigger, unable to manoeuvre in the narrow channel of the Hudson River and the nature of processing and the goods they carried had changed. But most of the piers remained and so did some of the buildings once associated with them. Customs sheds, passenger terminals, warehouses and factories. Some converted into other uses, even fashionable apartment complexes, small businesses and South Street Seaport and Pier 17, over on the East River, had become a shopping, leisure and tourist complex.

But the area between Twelfth Avenue and the old Piers 92 - 96 was one of the few still left to face the bulldozers or attract the attention of a property magnate. The confused maze of nineteenth century buildings, a mix of abandoned or short let to small companies. And, as usual with such areas, they were often a magnet for the homeless and sufficiently deserted for other entrepreneurs to carry out their business there. A place prostitutes would go to service clients and drug dealers ply their trade.

So when an anonymous hand written note got handed in at 1PP and found its way up to Major Case saying one of the recently stolen Lexus cars and other goods could be found in one of the buildings, Eames and Logan were both sceptical and careful. Sending it for prints and checking and not immediately rushing to look.

"_Tip offs"_ were not unknown of course and more or less every detective in NYPD had been told to exert pressure on their sources and known villains in their patch to try and get a lead on this _"Tarantino Gang"._ So ruthless it seemed certain they shot one of their own and might be behind the death of another who fit the bill.

The two of them, with Matt Desmond and Megan Wheeler, spent some time studying maps, speaking with a couple of local patrol officers who knew the area well and organising a small team to go with them. For all they knew, the gang could be holed up there too and armed to the teeth. The last thing they needed was a shootout and in a location where there were legitimate businesses and innocent citizens nearby.

By the time a small convoy of unmarked vehicles were heading to the location, they also knew who wrote the note. Or at least whose prints were all over it. Louis LeBeau whose name had come up before and been checked out. By Faith Dempsey and Matt Desmond. He had received the news only the day before that his Lieutenant's berth over at one of the Queens Precincts had come through. And needless to say, had local officers heading for both LeBeau's home and place of work once again.

They would worry about how his alibi held up once before later, but it was possible he had fallen out with his buddies as reason to give the cops a lead. Or could see the end was in sight with the arrest of Dipnall and the death of two others and had gone on the run. Rather as they believed Liz Dipnall had.

When they reached the area they split into two groups, one led by Logan and the other by Eames, to slowly and casually surround _"Building 2"._ One of a small sub complex of three identical ones and from the look of people who scurried away sensing _"cops"_ or trouble, one being used by vagrants, whores and dealers. The evidence of those trades on the ground as finally badges on show and guns drawn, they approached. The first floor windows were all boarded up fairly securely and the only doorways seemed to be from a courtyard structure in the middle.

Eames, who had Matt Desmond with her, was one of the first to make it in there and she was covering him and checking around as he applied some bolt cutters to a modern padlock possibly put on by squatters. Around the second and third floors were mostly old style cargo bay doors with winches above. As Matt opened the door she heard a sound above and across from them.

Then the sound of gunfire from within and a masked figure all in black at the open door. Holding a gun. She was half shoving Matt into cover, half getting there herself and yelling.

"_Police! Put the gun down!"_

The figure seemed not to move or heed what she said, as by then Eames could hear windows and doors being broken down as some of the SWAT team made the quickest entry they could to the building. Matt cried out. Not hit he assured her, but her suddenly shoving him into the gloom meant he did not see the missing and broken boards on the floor. His foot and a large part of his right leg had gone through. There was more sound of gunfire. An automatic pistol sound, as Eames was again warning the black clad figure and pointing for the benefit of Mike and others on the edge of the courtyard.

Then the figure above seemed to raise the pistol and Eames yelled a final warning before she fired three times. Aiming at the chest and she half expected the person to pitch out of the cargo bay to the ground. Instead they fell back into the building. There was not exactly chaos as Matt freed himself and assured her he was okay, but you could hear cop's voices yelling _"clear"_ as they began to swarm through the building.

Eames and the soon to be Lieutenant Desmond, limply slightly, were joined by a uniformed SWAT officer and were able to work their way up to the third floor checking the open spaces either side of the stairwell. Finding only a couple of elderly vagrants semi conscious surrounded by bottles. Via her radio, Eames learned one group had found in a first floor storage area, a dark blue Lexus GX seemed to fit one of those stolen. And what appeared to be another half dozen laptops and a small bronze statue on the rear seat.

That's how she also learned when Mike and Megan got to the second floor far side, that the man she shot was being given CPR as paramedics were called for. It was Logan who called her direct and asked her to meet him down in the courtyard.

There were blood smears on his shirt and Mike was as white faced as Eames ever saw the guy. Telling her first the bad news. That the man she shot was alone in the space and there was no sign of any gun on him. As Eames began to insist she saw one, Logan quietly shut her up.

And broke the worse news.

_**235 East 20**__**th**__** Street, (NYPD Academy)**_

It might have some fancy title these days but to most cops it was still _"The Academy"_. A structure hemmed into a downtown site, unable to provide many facilities for the modern training required and each year, successive politicians seemed to announce certain plans to relocate.

Goren, in the uniform you were expected to show up in, was sitting with the current Commander and several senior staff in his office. For the post presentation coffee and cookies and polite conversation. To him, still not sure his stomach had quit churning; he had _"survived"_ the experience. They seemed to think it had gone exceptionally well. It was true the questions at the end seemed to come thick and fast and one young recruit had commented on the way out of the lecture room. To the effect it was far more interesting than the dull _"this is how we are organised and this is what we do"_ they got from most other sections of NYPD and other professions.

It had never occurred to Goren until that moment maybe that's what he should have done after all. Or what Ross had expected of him. All that was in the manuals and he took it for granted potential cops did read them. He had and these days they even had their own web page. And if Goren was honest he had eventually stopped stuttering and felt more relaxed. The moment he abandoned his notes and went with some kind of internal flow. It was a subject close to his heart and had some overlaps with his Master's thesis. One reason for picking the topic was he did not have to do a lot of extra research, with all that was going on.

But when the Commander's secretary knocked and came in, Goren knew from her face it was bad news and the glance at him told him who for before she even opened her mouth. His stomach fell to his knees again. He feared Alex or Mike or Megan or one of the other people he was close to had been hurt in this operation they were planning as he was leaving the Squad Room earlier. To the sort of joking and teasing everyone got on the odd occasions they had to get the blues from their locker.

_**Roosevelt Hospital, Ninth Avenue**_

Goren was surprised when it was Logan met him at the street entrance as he bailed out of the Commander's official car. He had no idea Mike's jacket was fastened over so he should not see the blood and as they hurried through the doors to the trauma centre, he was telling Goren what little they knew.

Goren glanced round him "Where's Eames?"

"Bobby" said Mike awkwardly. "It was…Alex shot your brother"

"Okay" he said softly "So she's back at 1PP?"

Logan took a deep breath "And we did not find the gun she says she saw in what turned out to be Frank's hand"

That did make him pause for a second before he spoke and imagining the sort of search would be going on at the site right now. It would turn up and Goren had taken in that Mike himself heard about six shots in two bursts. Eames yelled a warning three or four times and he saw her fire the three at a target above and behind him at the time.

"It will be a good shoot" Goren said, though at that moment he was torn between his faith in his partner and his brother.

Currently in surgery and at least Mike had not minced words on how bad things looked, with Megan and a SWAT guy needing to do CPR to keep him alive until help arrived. They thought they lost him once and Frank certainly crashed in the ambulance to the point the paramedics would have given up. Until Logan told them the patient was the brother of a cop and they somehow got his heart going again.

Logan was signalling a young doctor to speak with him as a patrol car, siren's blaring, pulled up outside. Logan knew he was not done breaking news to Goren. A piece of information he was sure he did not know about Frank.

But before either could speak, Jenny Archer rushed through the doors, grabbed Goren's arm as if for support, turned to the doctor and choked _"This is Frank's brother Bobby and I'm Jenny…Mrs Goren…Frank's wife"_

_**To be continued…**_


	31. Chapter 31

**Thursday 15****th**** May**

_**Vestry Street, Soho**_

Jack McCoy glanced over at Eames and the still untouched soup beside her on the side table. The only sound in his living room was the loud tick from an old clock that had belonged to his father. It dated from when you got such things, to mark certain anniversaries, from your employer. In his case his twenty-five years with the police force.

Sergeant McCoy had been a _"cop's cop"_ back then. Not a bad word to say about him from his colleagues, but then they were not the ones living with a man who in private, could become as free with his fist as he was with a bottle in his other hand. An almost absentee father both blamed the job for his deficiencies, as a husband and Dad, yet never hesitated for a moment to put that first at every chance. And never totally forgave Jack for choosing what he saw as _"the other side"_ in becoming a lawyer. Even prosecutors were only one step up from criminals to Pat McCoy's way of seeing things.

"Al" he said quietly. "Please have some soup"

She stirred from her reverie under a quilt on the sofa. Where she had been since he brought her home from 1PP, when IAD and the rest were finished with her. Getting suspended after a shooting was automatic so that was no surprise but as the day wore on things went from bad to worse. Whether he should have cancelled a couple of appointments to so publicly get involved, McCoy did not give a damn.

Ignored the advice of one or two brave colleagues at the DA's office who expressed doubts, tried to assure Alex there was no conflict of interest and that he had set in motion the procedure for when such things might seem to be the case. And since late afternoon, Jack had watched her go through so many emotions and versions of herself. The great cop she was, as once again she relayed to him what she _knew _happened that morning. Even one or two ideas she had, might explain the inconsistencies of what was turning up and IAD kept putting to her.

Jack like her, frustrated that there were no doubt other things being found out, examined and investigated which they were not party to. Things that might give them hope. He had watched her rage about Matt Desmond for a while. About how he failed to see the gun or at least say he did, before Al acknowledged, she could not really expect him to lie. Put himself, especially right now in his career, in the same boat with her.

But the downcast, scared and miserable Alex who had retreated into whipped dog silence was not one McCoy had ever seen in the woman he was falling in love with. Part of that down to the total lack of communication from Bobby Goren and her not knowing why. Whether it was just all he must be dealing with himself or whether Goren was under instruction to have no contact with her. What Jack knew really worried her was that Bobby blamed her, held her responsible or more accurately irresponsible and with Frank sounding to only be alive on artificial support that might be understandable.

McCoy had held off until that moment suggesting maybe they should contact a damn good lawyer and not just one the Federation would supply. He was just about to start behaving like one himself and not an attentive lover, when the buzzer sounded for the outer door to the building.

He went into the square hallway to answer it.

"Yeah?"

"It's Bobby" said a quiet voice. "Bobby Goren"

_Like they knew that many people named "Bobby" to not be sure which one?_

McCoy buzzed him in and met Goren at the elevator. Surprised to see him in uniform before remembering what Al said about where he was when he got the news. The tie still fastened and even his jacket. As the regulations said it should be in a public place.

"Bobby. I'm sorry" said Jack holding out his hand and knowing that applied to so many things.

At least he took it. "Thanks Jack. How's Alex?"

"Dumb question"

"I know. Been a lot of those today I expect" said Goren quietly. "Will she see me?"

"Don't know whether she should"

They looked at each other a moment both aware of the conflicting roles both were in right now. Jack was a lawyer; he was also the DA whose office could end up prosecuting his lover. Bobby was a cop with a partner in trouble, but also the next of kin to what might be considered her victim.

Goren almost smiled. "If I was mad Jack I would have gone right through you by now to get to her"

"Don't doubt you could. Though I do know a few dirty Irish fighting tricks"

"Don't doubt you do"

"Come in Bobby" he held the apartment door open for Goren.

Inside two more minutes, McCoy was more or less dismissed from his own living room. Relieved to see Al come alive and aware when she suggested he left them alone and Goren did not argue, just why. That was a relationship he would never really be part of and he had a strong suspicion, Goren might be about to tell her things he should not and Jack should not hear as an officer of the court. But he was in no doubt Bobby was the one person she really needed to see right then.

On the sofa, Eames set aside the quilt in a hurry. Not wanting Bobby to see her looking sad and pathetic. Of the two of them he was always the one more willing, perhaps able, to show his _"weaknesses"_ or not so good at covering them up. When you were his size and with his smarts, perhaps that did give you a self-confidence to do that. Or maybe it came with what he had in his pants as his hitched them and sat down. That being a guy everyone knew he came with balls. But as a woman in the job, you sometimes felt you needed to prove you had those testosterone qualities too. Eames knew she was _"guilty"_ of that at times, if that was the right word for it.

"Is it…is Frank as bad as we heard?"

Goren nodded. "Sorry but yeah. He's on full life support. They still will have to test that once he's over the anaesthesia of course but…"

"But you can read between the lines better than most Bobby"

"I guess so" he acknowledged.

And not mentioning terms like _"brain stem function"_ and _"clinically dead". _ Terms even the doctors had shied away from so far.

"You know the irony of this Alex? Something I don't think I told you at the time"

She watched him twist those long fingers.

"When Mom was pronounced terminal, Frank made one of his rare appearances and talked to the doctors about not giving her any intervention for the secondary things that often occur. Like pneumonia? Or a DNR request"

"You disagreed with that?"

"No. But before she got to that stage and when she was well, Mom and I talked about that. We did what she wanted and had signed paperwork about. Not what I have chosen for myself should it ever happen"

There was another pause.

"And now, because of course Frank never made a living will or appointed medical proxy, he might well spend years like he is now"

Eames could sense anger in his tone. Whether it was because Bobby could now see himself making weekly trips to some hospital or long-term care facility again she was not sure. Until he spoke again.

"You heard I guess? About this…this fiasco of him being married to Jenny Archer?"

"Yeah" she sighed. "Mike was there when the medical staff found that certificate and insisted on her being sent for too as next of kin. I take it the thing was genuine"

"Oh yes" he almost spat the words out. "My brother married her last Friday at City Hall and according to my so called sister in law, they planned to give Caro and me a big surprise dinner to celebrate this weekend. But it also means because she's been his wife for seven days she gets first consult on future medical treatment. After all she must know so clearly Frank's expressed opinion after knowing him…what all of six weeks? What do forty-seven years count alongside a cheap ring and a fu…a marriage certificate?"

Eames let that sit on the air a moment "You think she's behind this don't you Bobby? That she set this…this thing…this part of it up?"

"Right now I could believe anything, but of course Mike is under instruction to give her kid glove handling at the moment. Treat her like any other victim" Goren gave her a twisted smile. "It's almost choking him"

"You've seen Ross?"

"Briefly. I've been at the hospital most of the day" he rubbed his temples. "Trouble is I'm walking a fine line myself right now. Not to make it seem I don't give a shit about Frank and am not motivated by some twisted desire to _"get"_ Jenny because I failed to _"get"_ her late cousin she may not know is her sister"

"I see that Bobby"

"Knew you would. Anyway enough of my trouble, I came here to see how you were and maybe give you some good news"

"They made a mistake in the lab and there was GSR on Frank's clothes after all?" Alex asked knowing that was another damning piece of evidence against her version of events.

"No but Frank was quite heavily loaded with Zopiclone. It's one reason he probably wasn't responding well to intervention. His systems were already suppressed before the trauma. The docs told me that and when I asked the concentration, it was enough to make a guy his build very disorientated and woozy. Especially with enough booze for him to still be legally DUI. From last night according to Jenny"

"I told IAD I got the impression he was swaying in the doorway. But who the hell fired the gun we all heard and how did they get away Goren?"

"Tunnels" he said.

"What?"

"They almost pulled that place apart this afternoon Eames. That side of the building had a basement floor. And several tunnels to Building 1, which has a full basement level. Megan told me when she came up to St Luke's. Apparently those two buildings were used as wine warehouses in the past. They were sealed up later but they found a couple of places where there were just doors in the tunnels and some of the old racks for the bottles still around"

"Sheesh" sighed Eames. "So it is possible when Frank fell, someone grabbed the gun and walked out of the other building?"

"That's one theory though…"

"Though proving it is another matter"

"Give them time Alex" he said kindly. "But there is more. It turns out this _"Custom Cars"_ Frank was working for is owned by a guy called Martin Clarkson"

"That was who LeBeau worked for" Eames startled.

"Yes though there is no sign of him yet. But OCU knows all about Marty. Before he changed his name it was Michelo Chiarro. He seems to be clean Alex but he's the late Fredo Masucci's grandson. His mother was the product of a relationship the Don had with a girlfriend"

"They say there were plenty of them…but…but that tends to support what we always said about there possibly being some link to a bigger structure…who better than Masucci connections to shift all that stolen property"

Goren nodded. "Though with his prints on that SUV we can't dismiss the possibility Frank did get on board with this operation. One of Clarkson's known associates is a fringe character called Belzoni. I know my brother owed him money in the past and Jenny is saying she gave Frank cash to pay off some debt so he could return safely to New York"

"I suppose OCU and we are almost up Clarkson's…all over him right now"

He almost smiled at what she almost said "Uhuh. So does that help?"

"Kind of"

"As soon as Mike told me I knew it was a good shoot Alex" he asked softly. "I still believe that. And I always will"

"That helps most of all Bobby"

_**To be continued…**_


	32. Chapter 32

**Friday 17****th**** May**

_**"Textrucks", South-West Freeway, Houston, TX**_

Joe Haslam walked around the lot. He did not aim to spend too much. He was going to ditch the truck soon as he got over the border into Mexico. Where he'd sit back in the sun, find plenty of senorita's to keep his _"Slugger"_ happy and wait for the Masucci money train to keep his share of their haul rolling into the station.

A bigger share now the rest were gone. Since Lou _"fell off"_ the boat the other night and a first class ticket to fly south had been part of his bonus for dealing with that Frank guy for Marty. He was halfway to Newark Airport before the cops even found his body.

As he stopped by a white Ford, Haslam wondered if that bitch Clarkson was banging for a while had worked it out yet. That she was going to be the last piece of unfinished business for Marty. Though for her to want that cop's brother out of the way, Haslam reckoned she was either smarter than she looked or Marty was snorting too much _Columbian _up his nose to see that.

Either way he was safe. He'd taken out insurance he told Clarkson before they parted yesterday morning. Him with the largely insensible Frank and Marty to that apartment, where maybe he expected a different kind of reward from that redhead. If he suddenly pitched up dead somewhere, a buddy of his own would go to the cops with enough to sink Marty and the Masucci part of this deal.

Haslam signalled to the hovering salesman in a Stetson. Maybe in Laredo he'd find a whore, unlike the one last night wanted extra to accommodate the _"Slugger"_ and then complained afterwards. If not he would just grab some Texas rose or wetback and have her the way he really liked it.

_**Interview Room 1, Major Case Squad**_

Goren stood beside Danny Ross watching Logan and Wheeler question Jenny Archer. Wondering whether she guessed he'd be watching the way she kept looking up to the mirror and as aware as they probably were, one tactic was not working. Throughout Mike and Megan had studiously avoided calling her _"Mrs Goren"_ even once. Indeed tried to rile her a little by using _"Archer"._

She might look just like Nicole the first time he met her and was the one sat in there, but Goren had to admit she shared more than just looks with her murderous half sister. There was the same plausibility in how she explained she did have an old prescription for Zopiclone but no idea why Frank might have taken some yesterday. Did not rise to the bait from Megan of why a man supposedly on a delayed honeymoon for two days would be either need sleeping pills or be drinking the amount he must have. To have the blood alcohol the hospital found.

Jenny was impeccably alibied for yesterday, just as Goren did not doubt what she said about them being upstate in a honeymoon suite from Monday night until yesterday morning would check out too. That was Nicole all over again. Make sure you had the paperwork and witnesses to prove what you wanted about you and get someone else to do the dirty work if you could.

Someone came to the door with some message for Ross as Goren watched her do either a genuine _"worried wife"_ or a good act of one. Not sure whether Frank was genuinely tied to this gang they had him under guard in ICU, so he already knew she stayed there long after him last evening and was there at the crack of dawn. Got so he could not bear to be in the room with her and the medical staff were uncomfortable at almost organising a roster for them to sit by the bedside.

His _"hostility"_ towards her something Jenny was very quick to mention at the start when she hoped the detectives would think more about her husband than their buddies. His brother Bobby, who was so indifferent towards Frank and his partner. That woman who shot an unarmed man. Goren did not doubt next time she would turn up with a smart lawyer. She could afford it.

"Bobby?" said Ross. "This just came in. Seems Joe Haslam was running one of the _Custom Car_ outfits. No sign of him and what seem like genuine and reliable employees have picked him out and Frank as being there of late. And by the way, they found Frank's prints on a can of spray paint for a black Lincoln. In the back of one with evidence of a dent and a spray job at the Brooklyn lot. Would fit with what happened at the Lexus dealership"

"The Lincoln usually driven by Lou LeBeau no doubt"

Ross glanced up sharply "Yes"

"Obvious" Goren shrugged. "They are setting this up to make it look like Haslam and LeBeau were behind all of this. With Frank tied in somehow. Using one of the innocent Mr Clarkson's vehicles off the clock. And as long as that…she denies knowing him and he her, we may never link the two. And the story we are getting from her about knowing Frank's _"weakness"_ for gambling will look like reason for him getting involved"

"That was something else one of the driver's said. That Haslam told them to let Frank win a day or two then as a _"joke on the new guy"_ they'd take him for a few hundred"

Goren shook his head "Frank was never a great card player. Horses and roulette were his weaknesses"

He jerked his head behind him. "She knew that even before she fixed this job for him via a really nice driver she got to know. She picked out the picture of LeBeau as him just now. Have they searched that hotel room she used in Florida? The victim's spoke of the woman being a redhead or a brunette. Wig traces are what we want. Or evidence of hair dye?"

"Bobby" said Ross "You are not running this investigation for all sorts of reasons. I put you on leave to deal with your brother's situation. You are here now as a courtesy I'm not sure I should have extended"

"You know the best courtesy you could extend me right now?" Goren snapped. "Get someone doing deep background on that bitch"

"Now you are just proving what she says about you!"

"Oh please" he grabbed his forehead, paced and turned. "Can you really not see what is going on here? Are you so concerned with how things might look or so stupid…"

Ross grabbed his arm and spun him round. "Just be careful Goren and remember who I am!"

"How could I forget" he replied turning on his heel and leaving the room.

As he hurried to the elevator Goren knew losing his temper was not helping anyone. He had some place to be anyway.

_**Franklin & Levi, Pace Plaza**_

Ron Carver sat on one leather couch mostly listening to what Goren had to say. Noting how tired and drawn he looked compared to a few weeks back when he and his wife had bumped into Bobby and Caro Reece. On Ellis Island. Where they had gone to help Sarah with her history project and somewhere it seemed Dr Reece never saw in that year she was working in New York.

How obviously in love they were when she joked she got dragged to Mets games instead and had to do the Empire State Building on her own. That almost coy look from him when Ron offered congratulations on the grapevine news they were planning to set up home together.

Carver made another note on the small bundle of papers Bobby had brought with him. A mix of notes he must have made probably late into the night or the early morning and copies of things from all manner of sources.

When Goren stopped talking and reached for his coffee cup, Ron spoke.

"So I am clear? You are seriously thinking about applying to the court to be made conservator for Frank?"

"It's one option for the future. And before you say anything Mr Carver, I know it might be difficult and expensive and you are not a civil lawyer. Just one I trust"

"Thank you. And you are right. Though maybe not as difficult as it appears Bobby. Judges tend to have a more…sceptical frame of reference than some juries…a more tightly drawn boundary of what they consider credible behaviour" he shrugged "They watch fewer soap operas"

That drew almost a smile but it was a good point.

"I realise too that we will need to drag up a lot of…unflattering stuff about Frank and his past"

"He's not known to be suffering mental disease or weakness right now, but yes. Things that would call into question his motivation for entering into this marriage so quickly. And the fact Ms Archer so far seems to have led an…an almost routine life of respectability could work either way. Women do get _"swept off their feet"_ they say. And you realise we will not be able to use her family history as reason to say she won't act in Frank's best interest? Not unless your fellow officers can find very strong evidence of criminality or previous poor judgement on her part"

"I do"

"This could ruin you Bobby" said Ron softly. "And not just financially though I will…well…use a few favours"

"You did me those already. In Arizona"

"There is one thing I need to say. If you are right that it might become an issue around maintaining Frank's life…"

"If I'm right, he's dead now and yes I do know you have a very different perspective on life and death to me Ron. But I look at it this way. Really good lawyers are at their best when arguing the opposite case to the one they hold to personally. Their pride gets in the way and their need to win"

Carver laughed softly "You could be right. Leave this with me a few days. Let's see what happens and I'll speak to some people more expert than me"

Goren stood up "And thanks for seeing me such short notice"

"Anytime. I'll pray for you Bobby"

"Thanks"

"And for your brother"

Goren took his hand. "And while you are doing that Ron? Check out Matthew 9, Luke 7 and John 11. Find me the verses that mention a ventilator"

Carver shook his head as the door closed behind Goren. Bobby was hurt and angry right now, but there really was nothing worse for a believer like him, than a sceptic who really knew their Bible.

_**To be continued…**_

_AN : The reference to Arizona relates to the events in "A Friend Of Mine"  
_


	33. Chapter 33

**Saturday 16****th**** May**

_**The Eames Family Home, New Jersey**_

She sat on the deck area with a cup of coffee. Jack had been right. Her coming _"home"_ to Mom and Dad for some _TLC _was better than returning to her own place or being alone all day yesterday in Soho, with him at work. And not once had there been a single hint maybe they should cool things for a while.

McCoy was known to stick to his guns, what he called _"the pig headed Irish"_ in him and that had probably cost him at times in his career and life. There was a lot to love about Jack if she would just let herself do that and one of his strengths was that independence. Did not, like so many men, seem to need a woman's undivided attention and to be her first thought all the time. The sort to play the neglected card, was always a sign of a guy needed a mother as much as a partner

The private cell phone she had in the pocket of her robe began to ring.

"Alex Eames"

"_You're up early. Did you sleep at all?"_

"Yes Megan" she smiled. "Are you in the stairwell? Sounds like your head is in a bucket"

"_No fooling you Detective Eames. I've just been going over the latest in the inch-by-inch search of those tunnels. Our good-looking friend Jimmy Antonelli found some hair stuck in one of the old doorframes. Fresh and grey and close to prints in the dust would indicate a man running"_

"You're getting my hopes up again Megan"

_"Still thought you would like to know"_

"Of course…sorry if I sound…"

"_Understood and one other thing? Matt found out how LeBeau pulled the being in two places at once trick. He has a brother Phillip. So like him they could be twins. When leaned on he admitted he sometimes substituted for Lou. Knew he must be up to no good but denies knowing what"_

"Can we prove Clarkson knew that?"

"_So far no-one can prove Marty even knows how to pull up his own zipper. He's got a Masucci connected lawyer glued to his side with the threat of every motion except a bowel one. And even OCU we know keep irregular tabs, never had anything on him would stick. Or suspicion he was into anything worth their time. Benny Chi wonders if the whole thing could be an attempt by Marty to prove to the legitimate line he can be a wise guy"_

"Does Marty have a record?"

"_Minor possession, receiving stolen and the OCU belief he was a guy wanted into the big league but never found a way to achieve that. They think the money to start up the first of these Custom Car sites came from his half brother Jack Bellini. And we know Bellini is a made man"_

"Perhaps Marty owes on his taxes" Eames half joked thinking of what got Capone and a few others like him.

"_Not even that though I think one of his vehicles might have failed an emission test" snorted Wheeler. "Did you hear from Bobby?"_

"Uhuh. Never said anything about any bust up with our Captain so maybe it was just Ross with one of his faces on after all?"

"_Guess we'll see and maybe he'll cut him some slack this time? He say anything about Frank?"_

Eames sighed. "Yeah. Rather as he expected the poor guy didn't come round. They had to ventilate him again almost right away. He spared me the rest but there was some sort of scene with Jenny. She's talking about having Frank moved to Mount Sinai so he's closer to her place and for the brain tests"

_"And how are you doing or is that dumb?"_

"It's dumb but I'll forgive you Megan"

_**Goren's Apartment, Brooklyn**_

Caroline Reece finished off the last of the clean and tidy the kitchen needed. Understandably neglected by Rob's usual picky standards in recent days. Just glad he was able to get some badly needed catch up sleep as well, though if he did not come round soon, she would have to wake him. There were some people due to come see the apartment and whilst she might find the sight of Rob's bare butt peeking out from under the covers rather endearing, it wasn't likely to appeal to potential buyers. Unless they had very particular tastes or inclinations.

She put some fresh coffee on to brew thinking aroma might wake him and recalling last evening's rather grisly scenes at the Roosevelt. Frank, despite no sedation, not regaining consciousness was no real surprise. She knew Rob was mentally prepared and resigned to that as much as he was when the medical staff switched off the ventilator. Frank's brain and body failed to pick up the task of breathing on its own.

Rob was no fool to not be able to read between the sorts of lines they must have been feeding him and Jenny since Thursday afternoon when he came out of surgery. Perhaps even wished for all sorts of reasons his brother was DOA or been allowed to slip away on the table when the surgeon's forced his body against its will and nature back into life for the second or third time. There were occasions Caro wondered herself about things like that. Just because technology meant you _"could"_ do certain things it did not mean you _"should"_ do them.

And had she needed any confirmation that Jenny was playing some sort of game, she got it last night with her own eyes and ears. The way when she arrived and found her in the room with Rob she made that remark about whether she qualified as the _"immediate family"_ the visiting rules set out. Then the moment someone came in the room switched to behave like they were inseparably fond of each other.

Whether Jenny was part of this robbery business and been involved in setting Frank up in some way, she had no idea. Could just see how she was like a cat with a mouse or trying to be, with Rob. Trying to hurt or perhaps provoke him with that other comment. How terrible this must all be for him, especially after his mother.

Sounds from along the hall stopped her even trying to work out Jenny's possible motivations. The sight that came through the door was not the most prepossessing but she loved him. The sleepy, scratching, rumpled creature that should not have bothered with those old US Army issue shorts. Not for what they were covering. Or mostly failing to.

"Hungh" it yawned, stretched and came closer to consciousness.

_**East 91**__**st**__** Street**_

Jenny sang along with the CD as she packed some things into a bag. The sort of things a fond wife with hopes of her husband regaining consciousness and being more than a vegetable would take for him. Some nice new pyjamas, cologne for his pale brow and some things to read or talk to him about. Other people caring for broccoli did that.

And among those things were some others she planned to dump in the hospital trash. Things it would not be a good idea to be found at the apartment. So far everything had gone better than expected. Frank ending in a coma not just arrested or outright dead, shot or falling from the cargo door, was a bonus. A double one when she found out it was Bobby Goren's own partner that shot him.

But it was plain he had his suspicions of her and so did that Logan. She and Marty knew they would indirectly link the two of them via Frank, but she had not expected them to dig out that Chicago business. Easy enough to admit she rolled around with a drunk Thomas Lacey because it was true. It was just there was no intent beyond getting him to pick up her bar tab that night. Not back then. And looking blank about Chester Lonsdale was easy. They would never know he bored her for three or four mornings at the breakfast table about his wife, kids and his thrilling job approving short-term high value insurance policies.

There was no sense in taking risks though. Should they turn up with a search warrant and for the same reason she was taking another bag to a storage facility. Containing things she would need in future. Soon as the heat died down she would deal with the one remaining link to her in the form of Marty they were all over just now.

It was never about the money. It was about proving she was better than her late and not lamented sister. Jenny suddenly remembered the wedding band she had discarded the moment she left the hospital last night. She dug that out of her purse, slipped it on her finger and stepped out with a smile. Anything Nicole Wallace achieved paled in comparison to what Mrs Goren had.

_**To be continued…**_


	34. Chapter 34

**Sunday 18****th**** May**

_**The Waldorf – Astoria Hotel, Park Avenue**_

Marty Clarkson sat down at the table in the bar with a furious expression on his face.

"I'm sure I was followed Jack" he muttered.

Giacomo Bellini sighed fractionally and waved a silk shirted arm to the waiter to bring the drinks he pre-ordered. His younger half brother really could be a pain in the ass. What came of being raised by that nonentity of baker Chiarro when his Mom married him after his own father got killed in a turf war with the Tongs.

He resisted the temptation to tell him to go back to tossing pizza bases if he could not hack it.

"Of course you were. Guy taking off the leather coat through the other side. One of the OCU regulars. Peter I think his name is. Goes with the turf. So what do you want?"

Clarkson waited until the waiter had gone. "A clean piece Jacko. To whack that broad"

"You stay well away from her for the time being Marty" he hissed "Unless you are the one who wants to end up dead and I won't try to save you from it being a slow one either. Just do as Saul Gold tells you. How stupid do you have to be?"

Clarkson sniffed with the regular nose run of the frequent cocaine user.

"And stay off that stuff for a while too. Keep your freaking head straight"

"Clears my head fine"

Bellini sipped his cocktail "They all say that to start with. You wanted this chance now don't go screwing it up just because the man has a little light on you right now"

"That bitch worries me"

"Forget her will you? If she opens more than her legs for a while she can only drop her own ass in it. For the robberies and this thing with the cop's brother"

"Turned out to do us a favour there though" grinned Clarkson. "Saul says the two Major Case cops they had to sideline are very good. His kid brother and the blonde broad?"

"They are" muttered Jack. "Though that was more luck than sound sense Michelo. Never mix the personal with business another time. And by the way that other little problem will be dealt with Tuesday or Wednesday"

He finished the rest of his drink, hissed instruction to stand up and shake hands and then left the bar. At the door Bellini gave a white SUV across the street a friendly wave and then got into a cab. Depending on how things went that might be the last he'd see of the baker's brat. Would cap him personally if Michelo's screw-ups endangered his own precarious position in the Masucci clan.

_**ICU, Roosevelt Hospital, Ninth Avenue**_

"…I know Caro has ideas of a different style of kitchen to me but I think it's important to not give in too soon, which I will of course. What do you think Frank? Anyway at least we've got some idea of the bill now. Scary stuff"

Goren took a sip of the coffee one of the nurses gave him.

"Not so much the cost as what there will be for us to do. She kept adding things to a list. You know the real shame of this Frank? That you'll never know Caro. Oh I know she's not your type and at least that was one thing we never fell out over was it? Girls I mean. Never did have the same taste did we? Unless you count that girl…what was her name…Cathy yeah that's it…her old man was our mailman for a time. But that was just a kid thing for me. First time I started to look and think about breasts differently"

He was talking to his brother not because he really held out hope Frank was registering anything or it would make any difference. But it covered the only other sounds in the room. Those of the machinery that kept forcing his chest to rise and fall. And at least Jenny was not there when he arrived after going with Caro to Penn Station. The normality of the day what he badly needed.

"I was looking at all the decorating needs doing if we get this place…and I really hope we do for all I tease Caro got her heart set on it…and it got me thinking about the apartment we moved into. Remember it? Of course you do. It was after Mom and Dad split up and he quit paying the bills he was supposed to. That room we had at the back, which was all pink when we moved in? I always knew you stole that can of paint from school but I was thinking of Mom's face when she came in from work and saw we painted two walls pitch black. Boy was she cross that day. Chased us both with that big wooden spoon until none of us could move for laughing"

Goren got up and paced to the window.

"Did you wonder Frank? If one day the time might come when we could be like we were as kids? I did. A lot…well maybe not a lot but sometimes. What do you think caused us to grow apart? Were we certain to be so different from the start or did we just react differently to our rearing? It's not like we were much different in age when things happened to us was it? Though I guess there come points when you take different paths that there is no certainty they will meet up again…like me going to college and in the Army"

He turned round and looked at the form of his brother like a statue on the bed. Trying to ignore the wires and tubes snaking out from under the bedclothes, including one led to a urine bag because he was catheterised. The volume of which the tall nurse had said they were monitoring closely along with Frank's temperature, for indication of a renal problem. That was how it was in this situation and how it seemed certain to be.

Goren glanced at the side table where he assumed Jenny left some magazines.

"Has she been reading to you? I'm sorry Frank. I'm sorry I could not stop this though I'm not sure you would have listened if I tried. Maybe I'm wrong this time. I hope I am. I'm sorry if you really do care about her and if I am wrong, I will try to get by how I feel…try to like her a little but I can't lie and say it will be easy"

He stopped and went to tidy the pile before realising there was something under them. That's when he saw that photograph album he had to force himself to show even polite interest in when he and Caro were at Frank and Jenny's apartment. For a moment Goren hesitated as if it were prying in some way. Then it occurred to him maybe it was left for him to find.

In the end he took it, sat down and began to flick through. Some of the handwritten labels were faded on the thick paper, like the one of Nicole's mother and Jenny's. Aged about twenty they really were _"identical"_ twins including the way they were dressed. Even their wedding dresses two years apart were almost the same or one remodelled and handed on. You could see Nicole's mother was just showing with her and Goren could recall once idly thinking she was one of those _"five month babies"._

He glanced at his brother who had been a _"seven-month"_ one himself and that was the opposite of Jenny born almost six years after the nuptials. When you knew her true paternity it did make you wonder what had gone on between those four adults on the next page with a newborn and a little girl in her first school uniform. With her blond hair very much the _"sparkling little girl"_ he'd described to Nicole, trying and failing to get the truth from her.

Or perhaps it was just a cop that thought that way? One whose own sibling was being inflated and deflated like a balloon beside him. And was like that now in some strange and twisted way because of him. Or maybe he was just a cop who was paranoid?

"I'm still here Frank" he said turning a page and then finding himself even more absorbed for the next four or five.

Ten minutes later Goren was kissing his brother's brow and saying he was sorry he had to rush away and he would try to get in tomorrow. Only it was one of those wild ideas and he had a call to make.

_**To be continued…**_


	35. Chapter 35

**Monday 19****th**** May**

_**Conference Room, Eleventh Floor, 1PP**_

They had needed the extra space for the numbers of them now involved both in the _"Tarantino Gang"_ case and the aftermath of Eames shooting Frank. Though the gang seemed to be dwindling in number fast and Dick Nichols had shifted responsibility for the Marty Clarkson end of that to OCU, who had two guys present. What they might discover useful to other cases was reason enough and if they failed to _"get"_ him on this, he was on their radar now for the future.

Mike Logan was assigned to link with them and it came as no surprise to Goren when Teresa Randle sat there with a list of things they would need before they could move on him or Jenny Archer. That was when he learned a judge, often not very sympathetic to them, had turned down a warrant application for her apartment at the weekend. Someone the other end of the table and he thought it was Megan, muttered, _"Why the hell go to her in the first place then?"_

Tempers were not exactly frayed, but people were tired and apparently the judge had ruled that way because they could find no record of Frank being officially listed for any purpose as a resident at that address. Though since it was the one the state accepted for his marriage licence, there was a glaring judicial inconsistency in that, as Matt Desmond pointed out. Did not earn him any favours with a tetchy Randle, he would not have to worry about for much longer.

And all they had on Jenny was she had sex one time with a man almost two years ago when she lived the far side of the country. Though Goren sitting and saying nothing for much of the meeting, suspected there was also some _"politics"_ behind that judge's decision.

There was circumstantial evidence of his brother being involved, but the hair and fingerprints could be quite innocent when he was working with some men who seemed deep into the robberies. And since he had almost been killed in what was a potentially _"reckless police shooting"_, Judge Orsini was thinking what could be made of that by any lawyer Jenny hired.

The good news was that Jimmy Antonelli, representing CSU had confirmed by DNA, the hair in the tunnel doorway belonged to Joe Haslam proving he had been there very recently. They had also worked something of a minor miracle to match slugs fired into a piece of old, heavy iron sheeting. The attempt to distort them, so they could not be, failing. And they were court quality cousins to those from two bodies in Westchester. Believed to be from a Glock.

That and the witness evidence Faith Dempsey and Megan spent many patient hours on proved Haslam was there Thursday morning. And cleared Eames to the satisfaction of IAD who briefly had one stone faced woman at the meeting. She acknowledged that the firing into the iron slab and in an enclosed courtyard location made it impossible for Detective Eames to establish exact origin of the fire. However, she did not make herself any more popular by saying they would mildly rebuke Eames. For not establishing fire was in her direction first.

It was Ross who asked if that meant in future they should wait. Until brick dust was pinging by their ears or an officer took one to the arm or leg. Before firing back.

Goren waited behind at the end of the meeting and Danny Ross looked at him for a long moment.

"I expect the first words out of your mouth are about to be I'm sorry sir"

"Yes"

"Take it as read this time Bobby. It was a difficult situation, not just for you, but all of us"

"I sometimes forget Captain. That you don't always have…have the freedom to handle things as you might like either. I'll try to do better"

"Sure you will" shrugged Ross. "You still think what happened to your brother was personal don't you? Not just him making a convenient patsy or a distraction?"

"Yes. Why I'm still not sure and I can't prove Jenny is involved any more than the rest of you"

"I re-visited some of those Nicole Wallace cases over the weekend. Some of the parallels in behaviour are remarkable. Perhaps I did not see that so clearly before"

Goren wondered briefly if there was something of an apology in that, before Ross continued.

"Don't suppose I have to give you the speech about trying not to let what is family business screw up the official kind"

"No Captain. Though at some point…"

"Sure. And while I know it sucks, if you could apply yourself to some routine paperwork to help today? Until Alex comes back or use Faith if you need back up on other parts of your caseload"

"Uhuh"

He closed his folder and stood up to leave.

"And there's this you can handle Bobby"

Ross slid a single sheet over the desk.

Goren picked it up, glanced at it and looked up aghast.

"But…but this is…the rest of those sessions at the Academy"

"Said I understood Bobby. Not that I wasn't going to punish you a little"

"But…"

"Quit using that word or I'll stick you on night shift for double roster time. Now go away and start earning your pay check for today"

**Tuesday 20****th**** May**

_**The Parking Garage, 1PP**_

Eames turned into her usual spot, immediately slammed on the brake and leaned out the window.

"You idiot Goren! Why are you standing there?"

He was in the middle of the space and replied by holding up a small sack.

"Those had better be blueberry muffins in there Bobby"

"Uhuh"

"So get out of my way then" she snorted trying not to laugh.

He had pulled some odd stunts on her over the years but returning from suspension for shooting your partner's brother and then running him down on your return would be very bad.

As she got out of the car, Eames handed him her bag and almost snatched the muffin one from him.

"Welcome back Alex" he muttered.

"Thank you Bobby" she gave his arm a quick squeeze. "Is that an apple and raisin one? I hate those"

"I don't or don't I get to celebrate too a little?"

"Of course"

"Want to know what?"

"Me coming…" she stopped "Okay you got me again you…you…so what is it?"

"Got a call last night to say the Village place is ours"

"That is good news" Eames said.

They stepped in the elevator.

"You need and deserve some right now"

"Kind of"

"Is it today?" she asked quietly. "They are doing the brain stem tests?"

"Uhuh"

"You going to be there?"

"Not with that woman no"

Eames saw his jaw clench.

"Bad idea for me to visit then. I would like to"

"Come with me sometime" he looked down at her. "Could use the company"

She held open the bag of muffins for him to take his one.

**Wednesday 21****st**** May**

_**The Office Of The District Attorney**_

"Want some Teresa?" asked McCoy at his coffee machine.

"No thanks. Twelve hours Jack. Twelve hours was all Dipnall was in Northern State Remand Wing before he was found hanging in his cell"

"So you said"

"You don't seem especially concerned"

"Of course I'm concerned. He was the best possible witness we got but what could we do? Stick matches under his nails and light them to get him to talk? And it was New Jersey decided his disposal. Not us"

He sat down and glanced over the report.

"Says here it could be a suicide"

"You don't really believe that any more than I do"

"You did your job. Asked for consideration. That's all we could do"

Randle looked at him a moment with that McCoy expression almost defying her to say more. She risked it.

"Maybe we could have"

"Who is "_we"_ Teresa?" he leaned over his desk a little. "Major Case sent people, good people over there almost daily to talk with him. If we are into the _"we"_ word I don't see any record of you going yourself to try. Cops are not our messenger service you know. And there is a bridge just over that way. Goes right over the river to New Jersey"

"But you…"

"I shouldn't need to. Now unless there's anything else?"

She almost snatched the file off his desk and left the room.

When the door closed McCoy picked up his cup. Perhaps he was a little harsh but he had made it clear enough last fall how he expected one or two changes to happen. And while he tried not to listen to gossip, he knew Randle had run her mouth once or twice about things were none of her damned business.

McCoy sipped the coffee. Wondering if Ron Carver was going to be at this Bar Association lunch he was supposed to speak at. And what it might take to get him back along the hall.

**Thursday 22****nd**** May**

_**Long Term Parking Lot, Newark Airport, New Jersey**_

The attendant checking out slots that had not registered on the computer as vacated when they should be, found the dark red Taurus or at least the licence matched the one should be there. Then he checked the list the cops issued for vehicles to be on the look out for. Not everyone bothered but he did. When you found one it was a break in the routine.

He found a late model red Taurus _(licence unknown)_ the NYPD were interested in. Could be that one. He got out his radio to call his buddy back in the booth.

Four hours later Danny Ross got a call from Mike Logan in the Delta terminal that CSU said there looked to be a visual match to the type of prints Haslam had. And two girls at the check in desk were certain it was he took a flight to Houston last week. They were checking the passenger lists right now.

Logan added that the body of Lou LeBeau had not pitched up in the trunk. So to tell Alex Eames that was a bet she lost and she owed him five.

_**To be continued…**_


	36. Chapter 36

**Tuesday 27****th**** May**

_**ICU, Mount Sinai Hospital, Fifth Avenue**_

To Goren's mind one of these places looked like much the same as any other and the care not all that different. Nor did it come as any surprise to him that Jenny had opposed any idea of ending life support when the doctors went over the results of the tests run at the Roosevelt and since Frank arrived here.

That was one of the ways she was playing with him. Using her being _Mrs Goren_ to keep his brother not alive but his chest rising and falling. And yet another drip attached to his body. This time with antibiotic to combat the chronic kidney infection. Probably the first of many and almost predictable with a catheter. How long she would insist on aggressive treatment for that and all the other things were bound to happen who could say.

Until she got bored with the act or found something else to focus her attention on. Goren had a growing suspicion what her motivation might actually be. One he had run by Caro for her expert opinion and experience and by Alex because she was a great cop and had known Nicole in a slightly different way to him. Not just a theory but one he had gleaned possible support for in a couple of calls to Australia. And from the deeper background on her that of course Logan had shared.

It did not turn up what they wanted and needed with the trail going cold, any more than the eventual search of her apartment had. She had too much time thanks to Judge Orsini to get rid of anything incriminating, even supposing it was ever there. And her latest stunt he might almost have predicted. Waiting over her usual time to visit until she guessed he and Caro would turn up.

Though it so happened it was Eames who was with him with her tied up with work and several people to see the Boston house over the weekend. Gave her chance to throw a kind of fainting fit at seeing him bring the _"woman who shot her husband"_ into what she had planned. Some comment to one of the nurses who were there about not feeling so good and being _"late"._ Just to see how he would react to the thought she might be pregnant. That his only chance of a niece or nephew would come via her. Of course it revolted him, but Goren was not about to show her that. In any case, he had always been _"Uncle Bobby"_ to his cousin Alan's kids and it was how Caro's nieces and nephews knew him.

And he had stuck with his promise to Ross not to muddy the waters for the ongoing investigation by getting _"into it"_ privately with Jenny.

"Looks as if the trail is going cold Frank" he said sitting down beside the bed. "Not sure we will get the people who did this to you. I'm sorry about that and because I think it's on account of me doing my job it ended like this for you"

He paused to listen to the ventilator for a pump or two.

"And I also had to make a decision Frank. It might seem kind of selfish. The only way I can spare you what I know you would not want any more than me, is to fight Jenny for you. Had a really good lawyer look into it. But it could take months or years if she decides to see it through. That won't free you or any of the rest of us lying here with you. And I include Alex spoke to you the other day. It's also about money. I'm not short of it but I'm not made of it either Frank. And to tell you straight I'm not willing to work two jobs like I had to a few times before in my life. Or expect Caro to do it. I need the time and I need the options it will give us. For our life and…and…well we still need to talk about that. So I hope you understand why I'm putting our future first"

Goren reached into a bag he had with him and pulled out a book.

"I thought I'd read this to you. You were supposed to for a book review in 8th grade. You know the one. The one I did for you so I'm not sure you ever did read it. Now seems a good time to find out what you missed playing ball and chasing that girl…what was she called…never did get her to date you I don't think"

Goren opened a well-used copy and began.

"_You don't know me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter" _

**Thursday 5****th**** June**

_**East 128**__**th**__** St (near The Green Parrot Cocktail Lounge)**_

Goren had listened to a regular stream of incredulity and occasional obscenity from his partner as she took the call while they lay in wait for Pauli Patterson once again. Eames almost slammed the phone shut.

"Unbelievable" she spluttered.

She had got hotter on an already scorching day and without the engine of the SUV running, no air con to help.

He left his shirt-sleeved arm on the open window frame, a manual in one hand and waited.

"That Jenny Archer has only gone and had a lawyer write to the Chief suggesting they discuss compensation and medical bills"

"Would have happened sooner if Frank had not been still covered from his previous job" he said mildly.

"Oh shit I'm sorry Bobby. It's not I forget he's your brother but when we think it was her set him up for what happened…"

"It's okay Alex. I can see both sides of this. It would apply to any other person after all. If she were not his next of kin I would have done the same. Would have to though the system would cover most basic bills"

"Not the private room though?"

"No. She's been picking up the tab for that. Could well be just another shot at embarrassing me, stirring up things for you too. Probably be a message for me at home saying I should be helping her financially"

"Will you? Can you?" Eames asked then covered her mouth. "Sorry that's very nosy"

"It's okay. It's the run a guilt trip by me trick" Goren paused. "And I think I can guess what prompted that. The nurse's gossip and one in particular I think she has on board was around at the weekend. Probably saw some kitchen catalogues Caro had in her bag or heard us discussing how much it might cost when we arrived"

"I don't know how you stand it" she said softly.

"Because I got my job, good people around me and the knowledge this will play out. Soon I think. With the heat off her and OCU turning it down on Marty"

"They are going to get away with it aren't they Goren? All those people they damaged and hurt and even killed"

"Think they might. History repeats they say"

"You know my theory. That she might well have some sort of playbook from Nicole. Even if you are right about the rest and why she is the way she is"

"That would explain how she so quickly hooked up with Marty Clarkson. Some old contact of Nicole's maybe…" he paused. "Now? Can we get back to the uniformed discipline code?"

"Is that Pauli coming now?"

Goren peered over his shades down the street "No. Nice try but don't try it again Eames. Now what would you do if…"

**Sunday 8****th**** June**

_**The First Fairway, Lake Isle Country Club, Scarsdale**_

Two men walked trailing golf carts. The older one in check pants and the younger in a red polo shirt. They had finished discussing the slight hook shot the younger guy had played.

"There could be one solution to this situation. One would be a kind of justice and free a lot of people" said the check pants.

"I doubt we would be that lucky"

"Have to make your own luck sometimes and not just on a golf course"

The red polo shirt stopped. "You mean…have Archer…"

"Uhuh"

"You have to be kidding…and don't look at me. I won't"

"Not suggesting that" said check pants. "Leave that with me"

"Now you are crazy!"

"Not myself idiot! There's ways of making things happen. If you know the right people or know the people to get a message to. At the right time. When all the…the straight options are exhausted"

"Which is where I would come in? To tell you when"

"Uhuh. Think about it. But first I would give thought to how you will make the green in less than three from here. With the lousy lie you've got"

_**To be continued…**_


	37. Chapter 37

**Friday 13****th**** June**

_**Tremont St, Cambridge, MASS**_

Goren got into bed with a glance around the bedroom.

"Caro? You don't seriously think all of this is going to load into that Mustang do you?"

"May need to put the roof down and hope it doesn't rain"

"Why do you need so much? It's only four weeks or so before we move out of Brooklyn"

"I do have to work in that time and quite a few boxes are full of my files. Now are you going to grouch the rest of the night Rob?"

"Probably" he wriggled comfortable. "And soon as the moving guys get here to take the rest going into store"

"Just as well you were not here all week then"

"Was good of your folks to come help and run the yard sale to get rid of what we won't need"

Caro's arm slid across him and she kissed him softly. "Even better idea to persuade them to leave this afternoon"

"Feels rude to miss them"

"Not your fault the train was so late and that wasn't what I was thinking of"

He had a fairly good idea what she was from the way her hand was playing over his chest and one nipple. Responding traitorously as she chewed his mouth and began to nuzzle his neck.

"Never going to let me live that down are you Caro?" he said softly easing her more into his arms.

"In ten years or so" she replied.

His fingertips trailed gently over the curve of her breast. Recalling his mild concern in January when they visited Boston that the Reece's, in the room next door, might hear them making love. And her giggled promise to bite down. His breath caught slightly, not with Caro's tongue exploring his mouth, but how he was responding to some teasing and tormenting touches lower down. He'd had to do the same thing too.

**Saturday 14****th**** June**

_**Surf City Marina, New Jersey**_

Even though she had arrived as a short skirted red head and was leaving looking as masculine as possible, she waited until it was almost dark to leave the boat. It was not a very large place so she had taken the precaution of leaving the car along the coast and taking a cab the rest of the way. A car that stupid nurse offered to lend her when she sold her some story.

Timing could not be better with Marty getting very anxious to see her. With her promised, large next instalment and Bobby off playing house in Boston. The one person she worried might check whether she had visited the broccoli as usual. He would have other things on his mind this weekend.

As she finished packing the cash, Clarkson made sure was there, she knew he had planned to kill her. One-way or other everyone else had ended up dead, which suited her too. So she had come with a gun that was easy enough to get in New York once you got to know the place. And had the sense to refuse the drink he offered.

Of course Marty was doing coke but was not so bad he would try any she brought. Liberally laced with additives, if they didn't kill him, would slow him down long enough until she secured a way of killing him quietly. For almost an hour they metaphorically circled round each other. Almost as if each knew what was on the other's mind and avoiding any trap.

She spotted her chance in the end though. Seeing one of those bronzes Marty was probably aiming to keep for himself on the side. Off with the panties, hitch the skirt and offer him how he really liked it. Once more for old time sake. But before he could try and strangle her or his pants get below his knees she grabbed it, turned around and hit him hard with it.

Didn't matter which blow killed him in the end and she took her time to make sure she left no prints. And thoroughly search _"The Penguin"_ to remove other cash he had stashed away. Then undressed him and tossed a rubber from the main cabin beside him.

Her last act, sure she was not seen, was just to remove a little of the adhesive lettering at the front of the boat. Enough to reveal the paint job underneath. Just in case with a lot of other things changed someone did not spot what it really was. The picture of _"The Pelican"_ was kind of cute.

**Thursday 19****th**** June**

_**Vestry St, Soho**_

Jack was snoring softly beside her as Eames got near the end of the section she was reading. Goren had _"promised"_ her a quiz tomorrow and he really was a tyrant with the study schedule. He'd damn well ace the test next month. Without even opening any of the books.

The only consolation was he had to be at the Academy to do the second of those talks had him so twitchy last time. Trouble was, even if she passed the written parts, you still had to clear the interview board and everyone said that could be the hardest part. Even Matt Desmond needed two attempts at that and his leaving party tomorrow night should be fun. Help cheer everyone up after they hit a brick wall again.

None of them were exactly heart broken when a marina owner seeking overdue mooring fees on Tuesday found Marty Clarkson's body. He was pretty ripe by then apparently, but whether it was what it looked like who could ever say.

No prints other than his or one of Joe Haslam's and it was as likely to be the Masucci's wanted rid of a liability as it might have been a red headed whore out from Atlantic City. That was all the description anyone had to go on and that was probably a cheap wig going on one fibre they found. Of course that also fit one the Miami people came up with at back of a closet in one room Jenny used down there.

But as her sleeping lover said, it would be like tissue paper to keep out a hurricane in court. And their own CSU people had quickly identified it as a very common artificial fibre likely to be found in dozens of brands available in dozens of stores.

Even Haslam was believed to be in Mexico. A Texas Ranger had pulled over a truck last week whose licence did not match the vehicle. According to the illegal migrants inside, they got it from one abandoned or seemingly so near Monterrey. And that truck tied back to a dealership in Houston where the salesman picked out the rapist of the gang from a photo array as the man he sold it to.

It was even possible Lou LeBeau was accounted for. A small blood trace was found between the boarding of the rear sun deck of the boat. Not possible to DNA type but it came up Group B. He was that group, neither Haslam nor Clarkson were and neither were either of _"The Pelican's"_ legitimate owners. The case that first brought her and Bobby into a scenario a cruel fate seemed to be controlling.

Eames gritted her teeth for ten more minutes on some sterile legal obscurities in the New York code. Then switched off the light and snuggled happily against a really nice and warm manifestation of the law in the city.

**Friday 27****th**** June**

_**Office Of The Chief Of Detectives, IPP**_

"I'm sorry Danny but I think that's the way it has to be" said Dick Nichols.

"I didn't expect a lot different sir"

"Everyone gave it their best shot and speaking of which, it's five on a Friday and I think that's time enough" he stood up. "Straight up?"

"Please"

Nichols went to a neatly disguised drinks cabinet to pour them both a decent scotch adding soda to his own.

"You know the real frustration for me Dick? Not being able to set Bobby and Alex on either Clarkson or that Archer woman"

"I know. Taking out his brother took him out of the frame and I'm not sure, as personally close as they are, even Alex Eames would be at her best in those circumstances"

Ross sipped his drink. "The only thing I can think of now is asking Goren to wear a wire. Tackle her in private"

"Check it out with Teresa by all means Danny but I doubt it would fly as evidence. If he was a mailman maybe. But an Army trained interrogator and a cop with his record? The lawyers will say it's impossible to say where Bobby ended and Detective Goren began"

"I will but I was thinking Fifth and Miranda violations left and right"

"Think too about him. I know he can sometimes annoy the heck out of you and I still have my doubts at times. But Goren's really held it together so far. Let's not push too hard on a guy has a brother who is brain dead the result of all this. No matter how much he thinks Archer is behind that"

"I'll talk to him Monday. Let him know the field is clear. And if she did kill Marty she might well have the Masucci's on her tail very soon. If they are bothered with him"

"Time will tell" Nichols pulled out a desk drawer to rest his feet on. "Better start giving some thought to what you'll do with him if Alex gets her badge and moves on quickly"

"Easy. Put him with Faith Dempsey. Petite women seem to have a better measure of the guy and ability to control him than I ever got" muttered Ross.

"Or not so short, brunette PhD's with a great pair of legs"

"Oh you noticed those at _Roark's_ last week" laughed Ross.

"We owe that lady too I think. And in any event Danny, if Goren gets his Master's finished next spring, who knows what might be in the air by then"

"I hate it when you say things like that boss"

"I know. Let's just say there is real interest in him from elsewhere"

"Oh" said Ross as he realised what Nichols was hinting at. "Though I'm not sure if that prospect doesn't leave me needing another stiff drink"

Nichols laughed. "I'll be retired by the time any Goren protégés would start rolling out of 20th Street. With any luck"

_**To be continued…**_


	38. Chapter 38

**Monday 30****th**** June**

_**ICU, Mount Sinai Hospital, Fifth Avenue**_

The week of night shifts came round in the roster to everyone in turn, so Goren had not really thought one way or other if Jenny would be there when he went to visit Frank. He was there twice or three times a week and usually at times he knew he could avoid seeing her.

So he was neither expecting to see her, nor surprised when he did. Out in a small waiting area because it was a time when the nursing staff had to undertake some of the more intensive care and maintenance, his brother's shell of a body needed.

"Not your usual time Bobby" she said as he went to get a soda from the machine.

"I don't really have them. Except avoiding those you seem to favour Jenny"

"Ouch! Do I detect a little hostility?" she feigned hurt.

"Not enough for you?" he shrugged, strongly suspecting his lack of aggression and anger had disappointed her ever since this happened.

Jenny didn't reply as he opened the can and sat down facing her across the room.

"Since we are both here I suppose there is no point in asking" he went on. "Whether you are ready yet to do as I want? Let Frank's body go?"

"How can you say such a terrible thing? About your own brother too"

Goren tutted. "No need for the act Jenny. There's only you and me here now. And I apologise. For thinking you would get bored with this little game so soon. What's it been? Six weeks now?"

Again she said nothing.

"You know the trouble with playing games with the dead? They don't provide a lot of competition"

"I wish you would not keep speaking of Frank like that"

"It's not my brother I'm taking about Jenny. It's your sister this has all been about isn't it?"

She was lucky not to break her neck her head twisted so fast. The smile on Goren's face was fractional.

"Oh so you did know. I wasn't sure. I am now, so thank you. You really should have been better prepared for that Jenny. Nicole would have been. And with something ready to roll off her tongue instead of sitting with her mouth open. Don't deny it either. DNA can't lie"

"I will be speaking to my lawyers about illegal evidence collection by NYPD"

"Speak to them all you like. But to save you some money I'll tell you. It was me took hair from your brush in the bathroom and had it analysed. The night Caro and I came to your apartment. Sue me if you want. But it will have to be privately, not as a cop"

"Bastard" she muttered

"I do wish you would stop trying to shift blame onto me for your lack of foresight Jenny. If you had not lied that night on Penn Station when you were as shocked to see me as I was you, I probably would not have done it"

Goren paused. "But I will give you credit for the recovery you made when the timing of events did not work out as you expected. Making sure you told Frank at least some of your secret family history and then telling us. So there was no danger of me tripping you up when we all had dinner that night and exposing you to Frank as a liar"

"I guessed by then you would have done some more digging" she muttered in her first admission of anything.

"So when did you find out? About your biological father?"

"You tell me. You seem to think you know so much"

He took a sip of his soda. "Two possibilities fit the best. I'll start with when your mother was dying. When you moved back to live with her, take on her affairs. Either you found something in her papers or maybe she told you. The dying do that. Feel the need to leave this world with their conscience clear. My own mother made a confession you might call it, around that time in her life"

"Both" Jenny said softly "I found a couple of letters they wrote and then I asked her"

"I'm sorry about that. Must have been a terrible shock"

She looked at him with that so familiar face. "I actually believe you mean that. I have an idea from something Frank said you know what that is like. And just out of interest when was the other?"

"When Wallace began sexually abusing you"

"Bullshit!" she spat jumping up from her seat.

"Yes he did Jenny. He did it for almost two years. When you lived with him and Nicole in Castlemaine. When your Mom lost her job and had to go find work in Melbourne. Where she met and later married your stepfather"

"I stayed in Wangaretta with…"

"No you did not!" he stood up and went to the window where she was staring out.

"I saw your photo album Jenny" his tone was softer as he leaned to speak in her ear. "A picture of Nicole when you were a baby. She had a school blazer on. Eight years later there was another picture. Same badge on the blazer on the grass in the picture. Nicole was at High School by then. You were the one attending South Castlemaine School. I spoke to the local School Board Jenny. They checked the files for me. You were there six semesters and at the Wallace address. Stop lying about that at least"

He heard her sigh. "Okay so I did live there a while. But I barely remember it and…and that never happened"

Goren was the one to sigh. "Yes it did. The same as it did to Nicole when she was about that age. The same as she denied her father had sex with her"

He turned and walked away and then suddenly turned back "That's it isn't it? That's how you are different to your half sister. She denied it all her life. You didn't. You only began this denial when you found out…when you found out last year it wasn't just your uncle…it was your father. And that he knew…knew when he was doing all those nasty things to a little girl that it was his own daughter he was doing it to"

"You're sick do you know that Bobby?" she spun round. "You spend far too long in…in the gutters of other people's minds"

"So did she ever know? Your Mom I mean. I think not. If she did I don't think she would have told you the truth about who your father was. Someone did though. At some point someone guessed or you told them"

"Rave on as much as you like Bobby it doesn't make it true. All these theories, patterns and profiles and I don't doubt you get plenty of pillow talk about that sort of stuff. Is that what does it for you in the sack? What turns you on? Caro's dirty stories about the perversions and fantasies she hears from patients"

"If it makes you feel better to think that, be my guest" he sat down again.

"Like I said this is about you and Nicole. She's the one you really blame. For either not saving you from your father or for being the one who helped him. Telling you it was normal; it was fun, grooming you, seducing you maybe even showing you what to do…how to really please her Daddy she probably didn't know was your Daddy"

"You are one sick son of a bitch" she said softly but he could see the tears in her eyes.

"No I'm not Jenny. I wish I were. You spoke of patterns. That's what made me wonder. It's not unusual with abusers that they do that. When one child gets to puberty they move on to a younger one. And by then they have the first child so…so twisted around that they can assist in the abuse of the next. Abuse the younger children themselves. It's not your fault any more than it was Nicole's. But somehow she found you and your Mom again before she died. Got her claws into you again. Or you found her. Which was it?"

"That did not happen"

Goren took a deep breath "Of course it did. How else would my brother's name mean anything to you when you stumbled across him in Miami?"

"She found us" she almost spat the words. "Took her vacation last summer in Seattle. Ran into a former co-worker of mine mistook her for me. Tracked us down that way, though knowing all she had done my mother sent her away. Wanted nothing to do with her. Small world they say. You just said it yourself"

"And all of this…all this carnage you created in the lives of so many people Jenny…what was that? You proving to yourself you were better than your sister by being worse than her? Though I don't think you really know yourself any more. Must be frustrating she killed herself before she could see you now…in your…your moment of triumph"

"Go to hell" she turned at the door "And what makes you so sure she did kill herself Bobby?"

With that she was gone from the room and Goren made no attempt to stop her. Instead he went to see his brother.

"Hiya Frankie" he said giving his forehead a kiss. "Now where were we?"

He picked up the book and sat down.

"_In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat trap and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones, and then…"_

_**To be continued…**_


	39. Chapter 39

**Thursday 3****rd**** July**

_**East 91**__**st**__** Street**_

The doorman called the cops when _"Mrs Goren"_ had failed to respond when the limo arrived that morning to take her to JFK. One she had been very particular to remind him to book two or three times. Danny Ross went himself with Logan and Wheeler to the scene.

It certainly looked as if Jenny was planning to leave, with half packed bags and a couple of large boxes in the apartment. She was dead on the bed from a gunshot wound to the head. One went in under the chin and exited almost on the top of her head. There was no gun in sight and subsequently her hands tested negative for GSR.

It had all the hallmarks of a mob style execution.

For Danny Ross, though he never imagined Goren would do such a thing, the immediate relief was on time of death. The ME present was saying between eleven and two. When he was perfectly alibied. By people and systems at 1PP where he was doing a week of night shift. That was later confirmed and narrowed by witness statements and stomach contents at autopsy. And the shell was later matched to a gun used in two similar incidents in the last four years. Whether Archer killed Clarkson/Chiarro or not, it looked like the Masucci's might have thought she did.

There were items from the various robberies found in the place along with a substantial sum of cash. Someone was making very sure the cops had no doubt Jenny was tied firmly into those crimes in some way. The item of even more interest though was a thick and well-worn notebook.

Danny Ross was the only person in Major Case to ever read every page of it and Goren was never to even hint he wanted to see it. Mostly it was a mix of angry, sad, gloating and twisted jottings Nicole Wallace had made over perhaps a four-year period. There were numerous references to Goren within it; even pictures of him she must have taken covertly and Ross did understand some of what Skoda made of it.

How for Nicole, Bobby had become the same sort of obsessive love/hate figure for her as two other men in her life. Her abusive father and Bernard Fremont, with whom she committed all those murders in Thailand. But that was where the Captain lost interest and patience with the theories the shrink had. They would never know the answers and his comfort zone had always been with the concrete, the tangible and the court credible.

But Jenny had written the latter pages, experts later concluded. Much of it confirming what they suspected was her role in the whole string of robberies, including the original conception. For which she found Marty Clarkson to recruit a gang and execute the plan. It also amounted to a confession to killing Nicole. Whatever went on between them by telephone or at the house in Cedar Rapids it would seem she killed her because she was not willing to give up the life of teaching school in obscurity. For one last _"game"_ they would play together. One Jenny had devised after finding and reading Nicole's journal.

Goren's suspicion was Jenny's original aim had been to bring he and Nicole together for one last time.

For him to be the instrument of her revenge. For him to kill Nicole for Jenny. For him to be her avenging fury. Her Adrasteia.

**Saturday 5th July**

**_The First Green, Lake Isle Country Club, Scarsdale_**

The younger man in the yellow polo shirt made his birdie then turned to see the older one in green pants assessing his shot from out of a deep bunker. That had not worked out as he planned, but the other business had. There was just one last issue there. A sad one. Not in their control or gift to make happen.

**Friday 11th July**

_**ICU, Mount Sinai Hospital, Fifth Avenue**_

John Dwyer, despite his own reservations, had performed the last rites as Mom would have wanted and Goren settled down to read to Frank. Almost able to blot out what was happening around the bed as a doctor and nurse went about what was necessary. It did not take long before they were gone. He continued to read to the end of the last chapter.

"_But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilise me and I can't stand it. I been there before"_

He closed the book and stood up. He went to the bed and sat on the edge. Easier to do now most of the equipment was gone and able to take his brother's hand without the needles and tubes stuck in it.

"As Huck would say _I been here before_ Frankie. I guess as the youngest of the four of us, I sort of expected to be the last one left. Just never expected it to happen quite so soon to Dad or Mom or you especially. I'll always think if you were anyone else's brother but mine, we would not be here now"

A tear rolled down his cheek.

"I could spend the rest of my life in ifs and buts but I think that…that would be a conceit. To think I could…that I could understand or control more of the world around me than any other person. Just have to stick with doing the best I can with what I can. Anyway Frankie, I expect you had enough now of me…like when we were kids and I used to drive you crazy sometimes with all those why and how and what questions. I'm not sure I ever said a proper thank you for a lot of things. So I'm sorry for that. But thanks for being my brother"

He let go the hand, stood up and kissed him one last time.

"See you again sometime"

Goren turned and left the room, thanking the staff outside before he and Caro left hand in hand.

**Monday 21****st**** July**

_**East 20**__**th**__** Street (NYPD Academy)**_

Eames paced to and fro on the sidewalk. Almost everyone else who had taken the wretched tests in the gymnasium that morning had drifted away. The small group she had stood with for a while after had not helped each other. Exchanging answers they gave, realising mistakes or omissions and everyone leaving convinced they must the dumbest of the group.

But what was bothering Eames now was the heat and where in the hell Goren had got to. He was late and getting later, though he would probably just turn up expecting her to remember every damn question, never mind all the answers she did or did not know. If ever there had been incentive to pass, it was the prospect of having him on her back again like he had been. For weeks it seemed.

There were times she almost ran into ladies rooms to get away from Goren _"helping her"_ though she would not deny some ideas he had for remembering obscure things had been good. And some of them fun. Because he made up some quite filthy mnemonics it was impossible to forget. _Perhaps that was Bobby's secret all along to all those obscure things he knew? _Except how to be on time today.

Nor had Eames dismissed the possibility that it was one of the things that had helped him get through the last few weeks. Gave him something else to think of and not dwell on the bad things. To organise a quiet but quite joyful funeral for Frank, before he was laid to rest with their mother. And at least he was not going home to be alone any more. As Jack had said one time after they all had lunch together, Bobby had family with Caro. More in some ways than he had for many years.

Eames turned at the sound of squealing tyres and saw their SUV come around the corner. The lights were flickering as it approached and it came hard to a halt.

"Damn traffic" Goren muttered as he got out.

"Is that the emergency then?" Eames asked as he went around the hood to the passenger side.

"Does there need to be another?"

"For you? No"

She got in, switched off the emergency lights and began the process of adjusting everything so she could reach and see etc.

"How do you think it went?" he asked.

"Terrible"

"Knew you would say that" he reached for his seat belt. "Now tell me the truth Eames"

"That was the truth Goren"

She checked the far door mirror and gave it another tweak.

"Did they ask about…"

"I forget"

"Shall I shut up?"

"Good idea Bobby"

_**To be concluded…**_

Note : For those who did not check it out yet… _"Adrasteia"_ is an epithet sometimes used in Greek literature for _"Nemesis", _the goddess of _"revenge and justice"_.


	40. Postscript

_**POSTSCRIPT  
**_

**Thursday 4****th**** September**

_**Hotel du Marais, Rue des Trois Freres, Montmartre, Paris**_

Alex paced by the large window watching the lights of the French capital coming on and especially the floodlighting of _Le Sacre Coeur_ just up the hill. The city prided itself on being a place for romantics and lovers and Jack had certainly picked a place with a great view. Done a pretty good job of the other things as well for the last four days.

It could have waited another two days for them to get back to New York, but then she was not known for her patience. Jack had complained about how early she made them leave _Versailles _to be sure of being back on time for the call. In plenty of time for him to complain a little more and for her to get more anxious, though neither of those things stopped him going to soak his feet in the bidet. Her own were starting to ache and pacing was not helping, even on thick carpet.

She had convinced herself of failure as Jack had chided her earlier from his impromptu foot spa in the bathroom. Told him he looked ridiculous perched on the tub and with his jeans rolled up to his knees. Nor was it dignified for a man now a grandfather to a gorgeous little girl they called Dawn. He knew and did not care. That was Jack McCoy for you.

Alex glanced at the clock by the bedside and at her watch. They were five minutes different. _So which was right? And like it mattered with a five-hour time difference from New York._ Goren might be the only person she could trust with this, punctual to the point of irritation at times, but the unexpected happened to him too.

She was just starting to wonder whether Bobby was so absorbed poking around a corpse he forgot, when the telephone trilled. Even that sound was foreign.

"Pardonne?" she said to the female on the other end.

It was a word she used a lot in recent days and she forgot calls came via a switchboard.

_"C'est Monsieur Goran a New York" _said the voice mangling the name with Gallic accent. _"Lui parlerez-vous?"_

"Oui. Merci"

Her heart was in her mouth.

_"Bonsoir Lieutenant Eames. Quelles choses interessantes vous ont vu aujourd'hui et vous ont fait…."_

"Shut up Goren and quit showing off"

_"I said good evening Lieutenant Eames…"_

Alex did not hear the rest. Cool went out the window and she squealed like she did years ago. When she was so much younger it felt at times. When she heard she had been accepted into NYPD. Then she gave some thought to Goren on the other end. And whether his arm was long enough to hold the phone far enough away to avoid permanent ear damage. She quit.

_"I take from that you are pleased ma'am"_

"Cut that out and yes I am…very…but not because…you don't think…"

_"That you want to get away from me? Took you long enough Alex. And I am as happy as you. Just quieter about it"_

A few minutes later Alex put down the phone and looked up to see Jack standing in the middle of the room, barefoot and one hand behind his back.

"Told you Al"

"So you were right again. Doesn't that get boring?"

She went over to him.

"Never. Congratulations" He kissed her softly.

"So is that champagne you've been hiding down the john?"

"No I had them put that in _le icebox_" he smiled then produced a single red rose.

"Je t'aime Alex Eames"

She looked at him a moment. Certain for a long time what her answer to that would be

"And I love you too Jack McCoy"

_**St Luke's Place, Greenwich Village, New York**_

Goren closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief. What a day it had been with a call to a corpse to get him out of bed early, Ross in one of his less open minded moods and then ending up with the last of those ghastly lectures at the Academy.

He stepped through into the large living area with its view out to slightly less of a jungle than it had been and if the weekend stayed fine, perhaps they would get more of it cut down. Though as he began to empty the bags from a couple of the local stores, he would admit the classes had got less daunting since the first time.

And however his day had gone, it had gone well for Alex. Of course he wanted her to pass even though it would mark the beginning of the end for them as a team. Life and people moved on but you kept the people you called a friend. Through good and bad and they had certainly had both of those extremes at times.

As he assembled a few ingredients for dinner, Goren remembered how three of them had taken it in turns to fire test questions at poor Alex. As she and Jack helped them get this room painted white and he wrestled with the last of the red tiling for the kitchen. And how as usual, despite his misgivings and alleged _"lack of imagination"_, Caro was right about the colour.

He went up the stairs to the first floor. Still a lot to be done and at least these days he could live with that kind of thing in a way was once almost impossible for him. Far better balance to his whole life and someone in it with him who could, with just a look, either tell him _"slow down it will wait"_ or send his thinking another way. And him so weak of mind and needing of body that was often in one direction.

He stepped in their bedroom on the second floor, put down the small sack and began to get out of the suit and tie. He was thinking how some of those closet doors waited some time to finish getting hung. The plastic cover was barely off the new bed before there was temptation to test it.

Getting a quick wash in the bathroom, he'd at least won the fake battle over the style of bath. He would be back in a little while to set the candles around that. At just one end so they could soak and wallow together the other while dinner finished cooking.

Goren knew Caro would know he was _"up to something"_ making a special occasion. Again. But it was time they settled the matter of the decoration and use of that small room next to theirs. He did not think she would say no or take too much persuading.

And even if the timing would be down to nature, a little extra practice later in what was required was never a bad thing.

_**THE END**_

_**AN:**__ If y'all hated this story the bad news is I've started on the fourth instalment…"Death's Eternal Cold"… mwahahaha!_


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